A Collision of Heaven and Earth
by razzleberrie
Summary: Natsumi's POV. Years after the frogs leave, Keron and Earth attempt to negotiate, but end up on the brink of war when the Keronian ambassadors are attacked. The platoon disguise themselves as humans to evade assassination, and Natsumi, now an adult, teams up with them and her old friends in an attempt to maintain the peace. GiroNatsu. Ch. 13 'An Army of Martyrs' now up!
1. The Hour of Trial

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 01: The Hour of Trial**

I can't tell this to anyone anymore, but my name is Natsumi Hinata. I haven't kept a diary since I was in high school, and even though I'm not talking to anyone in particular, I feel like this journal should have some sense of continuity. The threat of me dying an early death is statistically possible, and I want some archaeologist somewhere in the future to find this and be excited they discovered such an incredible source of information. It's the least I can do.

I guess I should go back to high school. I was one of the – I guess the media now refers to us as the "Five Kids" or something. Secret's out. Years before the Keronians showed up on a large scale and decided to attempt peace negotiations with us, a platoon of five of them showed up, but their mother ship abandoned the mission and pulled out before they could get back on board. The five Keronians ended up staying with five high school students, blah blah, this is common knowledge now.

When I was seventeen, the platoon finally managed to get through to Keron that they didn't want to invade Earth anymore, and they wanted to go back and appeal to the government for peace with us humans. I guess they succeeded since the whole Keronian fleet showed up a few years later and scared the shit out of everyone. People really weren't sure how to feel. Fuyuki was publicly all for it, of course, and by then he'd somehow managed to bullshit his way into being some sort of popular cryptozoologist. He made a lot of money off the Google ads on his blog.

By the time everyone settled down enough for actual peace talks to happen, I was already in my mid-twenties, living abroad in California. Life was rough. I felt like I was watching my friends' lives unfold from a distance, like in a TV show. I saw stuff in the news about Fuyuki staging protests against anti-Keronian government officials, about some millionaire upstart named Vincent Slater threatening to put the Nishizawa family out of business, about Koyuki's attempts to start a dojo to teach the martial arts of the Azumaya clan to a new generation of kids. Keroro became a peace ambassador, and I heard about that, too, but his image on the television screen was too distant, too far away.

I guess I should mention Saburo. After the frogs left when we were second-years in high school, he asked me out. At the time, I was overjoyed. I was young and naïve. I did not understand the idea that crushing on someone from a distance can destroy your perception of romance, of relationships, and of that person themselves. Eventually I realized, on a subconscious level, that he had just been a mannequin on which I could paint my fantasies, a sort of skeleton over which I could throw the fabric of my dreams. But that fabric turned out to be thin and transparent, and I saw the limp, lifeless dummy underneath, and foolishly – for several years – I tried to play God and shape it into the form I wanted it to be.

Thinking I could make things work, I moved to California with him, and when we broke up I was too proud and too poor to move back home.

That's about where the story begins – the day I woke up early with a start, from some nightmare I couldn't remember, and sat in my empty living room in the silence with my television turned off. I knew today was supposed to be the day the Keronian peace ambassadors met with the United Nations, but I didn't feel like watching it.

I wondered, briefly, how those dumb frogs had gone from being background noise, a minor annoyance in my life, to being a secret that ruled my existence and prevented me from interacting with the people around me. I couldn't tell any of my office coworkers I used to house Keronian military. At best, they'd think me insane, and at worst, suspect me of being some sort of spy. Maybe that's what drove me back to Saburo, over and over – we shared a past, a part of us, that we couldn't share with anyone else.

Anyway, I'm glad I accidentally woke up that early, because by the time I put my hair in a ponytail, threw on an old t-shirt and some athletic shorts to lounge in, and brushed my teeth there was a knock on the door. I paused, nervously. Maybe a part of me sensed my world about to shift underneath my feet. Even though I hated it, I'd grown weak over the years, a hollow husk instead of the adventurous, intense young woman I was in high school, and as a weary, bitter adult I clung to my routine as a source of comfort. Something in the air threatened that routine.

I opened the door. It was Saburo.

My first instinct was to shut the door in his face. This was not the first time he'd shown up at the door of my apartment looking serious. Usually those visits ended with him wrapped in my blankets and sheets and me sitting on the edge of my bed, feeling stupid and disgusted with myself.

"Wait," he said, holding up an envelope, "This has nothing to do with... us."

I wordlessly held my hand out. Saburo gave me the envelope. I pulled out a letter and two plane tickets. The letter was written on custom stationary with the emblem of the Nishizawa family at the top of the paper. "To Natsumi and Saburo, I have no idea if this is the address you still live at, but it's the only one I have..."

It was from Momoka. She warned us about a connection between her financial rival, Vincent Slater, and the Messengers, a group of anti-Keronian religious zealots who expressed their distaste with the peace negotiations by doing fun things like rioting and shooting people.

"I think Vincent is targeting my business because he suspects I have a history with the Keronians," Momoka wrote. "He knows I sponsor Fuyuki, and I think he has enough intel out there to figure out Fuyuki has a sister. I sent you guys plane tickets to Japan just in case. Paul will meet you at the airport and take you to one of my summer homes."

My stomach dropped. The past was finally catching up to me.

"That's not all," Saburo murmured. "This morning, when the Keronians went to the UN, there was some sort of implosion and the building collapsed. No one saw a blast, but it was televised internationally. The floor shook and everything fell."

I thought of Keroro, standing proud among the other ambassadors. Was he okay? What was even happening? Within minutes, my comfortable bubble popped, and I felt stripped down, exposed to an uncaring universe. The threat of the Messengers was even worse. For the first time, I wasn't truly safe on my home turf. Before, as a teen, I had been targeted by aliens, but it was always me with the humans against the invaders – but now –

"Let me pack first," I managed. Walking to my room felt like wading into murky water.

The drive to the airport and even the flight itself was, fortunately, uneventful. Saburo attempted to be lively, to carry on conversations with me. I kind of felt sorry for him, looking over at his sleeping face during the flight; he was not a bad person, nor was he a terrible boyfriend. I had just never loved him. The problem with loving the idea of someone more than you actually love them is you don't even realize there's a problem for years and years. There is just an emptiness to the relationship that haunts you. And when you finally get around to breaking things off, there's no clean, easy way out of the relationship – it's not like you can say, "I'm tired of the fighting," or "You cheated and I can't trust you anymore." You've just kind of... woken up from a dream.

Landing filled me with sudden anxiety. I shook Saburo awake, and he seemed to feel it, too – the tension buzzing in the air like electricity. We pulled on wide sunglasses, hats, and scarves, hiding our faces at the airport as if we were celebrities on the run from paparazzi photographers. Positioning ourselves in the middle of a crowd of people, we exited the plane. Paul stood in the distance, unchanged. Lord knows that man might be immortal. He nodded at us in acknowledgment.

Paul bowed and took our luggage. "I thought it would be a good morale booster for the both of you to know you have a few old friends at the house," he told us.

"Keroro?" I asked hopefully, my hand going straight to my chest in a gesture of relief.

"Yes," Paul nodded. "Along with the others."

He hesitated before saying "the others," glancing awkwardly at Saburo, whom I saw visibly stiffen out of the corner of my eye. The exchange confused me, but I was more concerned with the well-being of the dumb old sergeant and about escaping the prying eyes of the public. Anxiety ran high as we exited the airport, making our way outside to the limousine.

The sound of a gunshot ripped through the air like a shockwave. A ringing flared up in my ears. The people around us threw themselves to the ground, screaming, but their cries sounded muffled and distant to me. Between the high-pitched "eeeeee" noise in my head and the chaos around me, I made out Saburo shouting my name and touching my lower back in an attempt to steer me. Paul escorted both of us into the limo. He pulled a handgun from the inside of his suit jacket to cover our backs.

When we piled into the backseat, I suddenly felt something warm and wet running down my face. I reached up to touch my cheek and, when I pulled away, my fingers were stained red with blood. I became so overwhelmed with fear and confusion I just sat there in shock, barely registering that Saburo and Paul were touching and looking at my head and neck to see if I had been shot.

"The bullet skimmed her," Paul concluded with a heavy sigh. "She is fine."

"I can barely hear you," I said.

"That's normal. That bullet passed incredibly close to your ear. You're probably also in shock."

The driver tore out of the parking lot as fast as he could, dodging other cars amidst a chorus of honking and squealing tires. He turned to glance back at us. "I'm hoping I lost them, but there was a car of Messengers. We might be followed."

"Take the longest and most convoluted route you can," Paul ordered.

Paul was right. Eventually the ringing dimmed to a distant background noise, and I could clearly hear the purr of the engine and the thumping of the tires over unsteady roads. The driver took us over a network of empty one-way streets and forgotten, pothole-ridden alleys. Then, when we could no longer see anyone around us for miles, we turned and the road opened into a wide countryside highway, framed by farmland on both sides.

"Makes me think of Grandma's house," I said without thinking. Forested mountains towered in the distance, and the vast plains were lined with thin, unpaved side roads and traditional country homes. I thought about vacationing in the countryside and finding the frogs stowed away in the backseat of Mom's car. The memory was painful in its own sweet-and-sour way, like bare feet on summer-hot pavement scrawled with sidewalk chalk drawings. I guess that's what people call "nostalgia."

After awhile I closed my eyes. I guess Paul and Saburo thought I was asleep and started talking about me, but I was too disoriented and exhausted to let them know I was awake. I wasn't even sure, myself, if I was completely awake anyway. They didn't say anything bad – Paul observed the weird distance between us and Saburo explained that we weren't together anymore.

The last thing they talked about was kind of strange.

"So, everyone thinks we're still together," Saburo ventured, talking slowly and quietly.

There was a pause. Paul snorted, as if he knew what Saburo was really asking. "Yes."

"How did... You know..."

"He seemed fine," Paul responded, answering a question I didn't understand. "But you never know with him. He seems the type to shelve thoughts and feelings unless he has a use for them."

I think at some point I fell asleep for real, because right after that Saburo touched my arm and gently called my name. I blinked open my heavy eyelids and realized the limo had stopped and was parked in the circle driveway of some elaborate country mansion. Paul held the car door open for me, offering his hand as I sleepily stumbled out into open air.

"Natsumi!"

I looked up to the sound of my brother's voice. He stood at the top of a low flight of stairs leading to the front double doors, waving at me. Fuyuki had grown to be a handsome young man, with the outgoing, round features of our mother, but with a more pronounced jawline, broader shoulders, and a lean, lanky figure. At some point after I moved he'd grown taller than me.

However, beside my brother stood someone else, who I can only describe as a familiar stranger. He was roughly Fuyuki's height, and of ambiguous ethnicity, with light brown skin and large, dark eyes. A mop of bright green hair sat unruly on top of his head, and his upturned nose was brushed with a cloud of freckles. The man's arm was in a sling.

"Natsumi," he greeted cheerfully, "It's nice to see you again."

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. "Wait – Keroro?"

* * *

_Author's Note: Why, hello there. I'm new around these parts. This is my first fanfiction in several years, and I guess I started writing fanfic again as a sort of stress relief during finals week (don't do that; I'm a terrible example). Anyway, I've had this idea burrowing in my brain since this past winter, and I finally had to write it down. I plan on updating this once a week since summer break is coming up. Anyway, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it._


	2. A King and a Conqueror

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 02: A King and a Conqueror**

Sleep is a wonderful thing. I woke up in the middle of the day, with afternoon sunlight streaming between half-open blinds. The suites Momoka supplied us with were spacious and tastefully decorated, with large beds fitted with goose-down mattresses and pillows. For a moment, I imagined myself waking up in my own room in my mother's house, before the reality of the previous day's events pulled me out of my tired meditations.

My hair had grown much longer since high school, and I threw it into a messy bun, not bothering to change out of the ribbed tanktop and boxer shorts I wore to bed. The hallways in that house were always alive with the chattering voices of the other refugees, and I introduced myself to a few of the other ambassadors on my way to the kitchen. It felt like I'd been sleeping for a week straight; my stomach was practically on the verge of collapsing in on itself.

Keroro sat at the table, his fat cheeks already full of food. "Morring Nah-numi."

"How about you don't speak with your mouth full," I teased, seating myself across from him. It hadn't taken much for me to accept his Pekoponian form – all he had to say was something about Kululu and Keronian technology, and I shrugged my shoulders and nodded. I remembered as a young teen not fully comprehending the platoon's weird experiments, and this was no exception.

I had not, however, seen any of the other platoon members yet, and found myself fascinated by the man preparing lunch on the stovetop behind Keroro. He was not particularly tall, and possessed an athletic but thin body – a body built for speed and flexibility. The man's long white hair fell around his face and curled slightly at the nape of his neck, but I could tell from the features I could make out he was of the same strange ethnicity as Keroro.

I stood up and walked right over to the counter, leaning on it so I could see the man's face. He glanced over at me with vivid blue eyes, a scarf obscuring his mouth. "Oh, hello, Lady Natsumi."

"Dororo!" I grinned. "How have you been?"

"To be perfectly honest, I've been missing Pekopon. I am glad to be back, though I wish it was under different circumstances."

"I'm sure they'll just arrest the guy who did it and everything will be normal again in a few days," Keroro said absently, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Dororo's face grew serious. "I hope that is the case."

The timer on the stove beeped. Just as Dororo removed the lid of the pot and the scent of finished soup drifted into the air, the door to the kitchen swung open again. I recognized Koyuki immediately. She'd hardly changed at all. Still slender and short, with a round face and shining eyes, I almost imagined a ghost of my childhood walked into my life. However, there was a specific sharpness to her now – something to her posture, to the lines and features of her face, that suggested a newer confidence and maturity.

"Natsumi," she gasped, drawing me into a tight hug. Our old affection resurfaced immediately, and after the hug ended we remained standing with my arms around her shoulders and her hands on my waist. "I was so worried about you! How's it been?"

I was honest. "Tough."

"Saburo?"

"We broke up about a year ago now, I'd say."

Dororo paused and peered at me out from under the fringe of his long hair. Keroro stopped slurping whatever he was eating to listen. Briefly, I wondered why everyone was so interested in my love life, but Koyuki was more important than whatever they had on their minds.

"I can't believe I didn't know! Why didn't you stay in touch?" Koyuki asked, face creased with concern. I looked straight into her eyes – those big, honest, kind eyes – and felt terrible. Out of all the "Kids", she's the one I care about most. Sure, I worried about my brother from time to time, but Koyuki had been the first girl I really bonded with in terms of real friendship, and without me she had been all alone.

"I... To be completely honest, I have no idea," I admitted. "I'm sorry."

She hugged me again, perhaps sensing my sadness and loneliness over the past few years. "It's okay, anyway. What matters is you're back now."

I smiled, surprising myself. Muscles in my face that had not been used in awhile creaked to life like the gears of old machinery. I realized how much I missed everyone.

"Anyway," Koyuki continued, "Now that all five of us are here, we have to go talk to Momoka. She's going to give us an overview of what's going on."

–

After letting me change into actual pants, Koyuki lead me through the massive corridors ("One of Momoka's summer homes," I muttered under my breath) before we entered an equally huge room that kind of looked like a mix between a library and a personal study. A few bookshelves lined the walls, stocked with untitled leather-bound books, but beyond the shelves sat a mahogany desk with a plush office chair sitting behind it. I noticed Saburo and Fuyuki sitting in chairs in front of the desk, and they nodded in acknowledgment when we walked in.

The door opened and closed again behind us as we sat down in the two free chairs, and I turned to see Momoka approaching us with a laptop tucked under her arm. "Sorry I wasn't in here, guys, I had to leave for a second to check on one of the ambassadors."

I raised my eyebrows at her. I hadn't seen her since I graduated high school, and at the time she had still been an immature and underdeveloped young girl. The Momoka seating herself in the large plush chair was no teenage girl. Her features had smoothed into regal cheekbones, and she had somehow mastered symmetrical, winged eyeliner. She also appeared to have the body she'd always wanted, and though I recalled breast augmentation rumors swirling in the media years ago regarding the heiress, I didn't care whether it was natural or not. She looked great.

"So, I guess you guys are wondering why I called all of you here and made you drop important things like, you know, every day life," Momoka joked. She had always been such a passive-aggressive, shy person – where did this cool, casual head-of-the-company come from? I clearly had been gone too long.

She pulled a remote from a drawer in her desk and swiveled in her chair to face the wall behind her. Immediately, the wall shifted, and a fairly expensive-looking, wall-mounted television emerged from a hidden nook behind it. Momoka opened her laptop. After a bit of typing and clicking, the TV seemed to connect with the laptop, displaying a picture of a man with the name "Vincent Slater" under his picture.

The man was slick in a tailored suit and long overcoat; his thick black hair contrasted in an almost sickly way with the fair, white-blue paleness of his skin. His icy-blue eyes completed the look, and I felt a sense that his picture was staring right into me. The man was clean-shaven with short hair and a thin-lipped smile.

"As many of you know, my father died in a car accident a few years ago, and I inherited the company," Momoka began, a hint of bitterness to her voice. "The accident occurred right after this man surfaced as a rival to the company. Many people think the accident was staged, but there's no way of proving it."

She hit a button on the remote, displaying a digital collage of newspaper clippings, one of which placed a man who vaguely resembled Slater on the street corner behind the accident, though he had turned away as soon as the photo was taken. Huffing in restrained frustration, Momoka continued to the next part of the slideshow.

"Slater's always been open about his anti-Keronian sentiments, but it was difficult to connect him to the Messengers until they started buying up entire ghost towns to use for their own personal hideouts. There are only two people on this planet who are wealthy enough to do that – me, and Slater."

She pulled up an image from security cameras back at the main house in our hometown. The pictures showed Paul escorting Momoka into a car, the same way he had protected us and Saburo, as they were chased by Messengers. Maybe I should describe Messengers to you – they dress like normal people from the neck down, but wear black executioners masks over their faces and necks, like in medieval Europe.

Fuyuki cleared his throat. "There are a lot of Messengers with anonymous blogs on the internet. They used to send me hate all the time, but that was all. At least, until I got attacked the other day..."

"That's another thing," Momoka pointed at him. "Why did the Messengers choose to attack us now, at the same time they allegedly bombed the UN? Someone knows we are the original five who housed the Keronians."

"They even found me, and I live at my dojo in the mountains," Koyuki said.

I shifted uneasily. "Momoka, this stuff with the Messengers is all very disturbing, but are you sure we can connect Slater to them? It still seems like a bit of a stretch."

"Based on what I've told you so far, yes, it does," Momoka agreed. "Until you realize that the anti-Keronian UN ambassadors with financial connections to Slater were not present at the bombing."

"So he's bribed several politicians, has a vast organized crime army disguised as a cult working for him, and somehow knows who we are. Great."

"But wait, there's more," the heiress brought up looping footage of the inside of the UN during the bombing. I hadn't seen it, so the clip was new to me, and it looked more like an earthquake than an explosion. She turned back to us, gesturing at the screen with the remote. "I suspect they may have access to alien technology. There was no evidence of a bomb ever found. I don't know how or why, but Slater has alien connections – which may explain his hostility toward the Keronians."

"If it's a civilization that knows the platoon, that would also explain how they know who we are," Saburo offered.

Momoka nodded in agreement.

"Got anymore bad news for us?" I asked, sarcastically.

"Actually, I do. Possibly the worst of all."

Damn it.

She turned to the TV again and switched to a channel that displayed several news reports on a split-screen. All the news stations had similar headlines – "Keron threatens Earth with war."

"When the earthquake-slash-bombing happened," Momoka explained, "Some sort of signal or frequency, inaudible to our ears, was sent out to disable all the Keronian ambassadors' phones. They had no way of contacting the mother ship to let them know they are okay. Keron thinks all of their ambassadors have been assassinated, and they demand that the bodies be given to them, along with whoever is responsible."

I was dumbfounded. "But you can't arrest an entire cult! No one knows who's responsible."

"Wrong. We do."

Momoka changed the screen back to the first slide, the picture of Slater.

"...Are you saying that we are going to pick a fight with the Messengers and try to catch their rich, smart, famous leader, who might not even be their leader?" This was ridiculous. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't process what was even happening.

She smiled. "Do you have a better idea?"


	3. A Day of Rest

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 03: A Day of Rest**

People in high school thought I was fearless. I wasn't. I just have this response to crisis situations where I know no one else will do anything, so I have to be the one who gets shit done. Basically, I force my brain to shut down whatever part of it is supposed to make me feel scared and worried and throw myself into the problem at hand before I can think myself out of doing it.

That's what I was trying to do right then. I wandered around in the darkening hallways of Momoka's mansion, observing the bloody gold color of the setting sun staining the floor in squares beneath the windows. The chatter of the people around me and the motion and activity of moving around were preferable to sitting alone in my room. I ran into Tamama, which is about when I figured out that the Keronian "humans" had a particular look to them that seemed to be a mish-mash of various random skin colors and features – he, too, was tan-skinned, but with thick, dark, cow-licked hair that fell around his broad face in loose curls.

"Natsumi," he chirped, waving at me.

"Hey," I noted he'd apparently barely aged – though I wasn't sure how I could tell when he'd been a frog the last time I saw him. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know. Doing whatever I can to help Sarge. You?"

Sighing, I gave a half-hearted shrug. "Man, I don't even know anymore. I had to drop my job and my apartment, fly back to Japan with my estranged ex, literally dodge a bullet, and now I find out we're on the brink of war."

"For lack of anything better to say, at least it couldn't get much worse," Tamama patted me on the shoulder.

"Right," I laughed. "Knock on wood."

We both crouched to tap the hardwood floor and giggled together. I'd never been particularly close to Tamama, but it felt good to joke around with someone after everything I'd dealt with. Apparently both of us were equally stressed out and exhausted, because as soon as we sat on the floor we both fell over and laid there, laughing quietly at our own laziness.

"Hey, Tamama."

"Yeah?"

I suddenly got really shy and embarrassed for some reason, though I wasn't sure why. "Do you know where – I mean, I haven't – I haven't seen the whole platoon yet."

Tamama snorted. He crawled over to the nearby window, which opened to the backyard. He unlatched it and pushed it up, letting in fresh air and the sound of the night's first crickets making music. After a moment, the heavy scent of woodsmoke drifted in on the evening breeze. The smell gave me a tight, bittersweet feeling in my chest.

"Giroro is outside with his fire," Tamama said. "He goes out there by himself every night."

Heaving and grunting, I managed to get to my feet, and I leaned on the window sill. I was on the second floor, but below me in Momoka's rolling several-acre backyard I could see a brilliant orange plume of fire in the middle of the twilight-darkened land. Against the flames I made out the silhouette of a tall man tossing wood into the fire and prodding it. Suddenly, I felt nervous.

"Is everything okay?" Tamama asked, looking at me.

I hardly heard him. In the back of my mind, another voice, Giroro's, surfaced out of the shadows of a memory – "I want you to know I always admired you." I remembered crying a lot that last night by the fire. Giroro didn't know what to do or how to comfort me but it just seemed natural, that final outpouring of unrestrained feelings. I remembered telling him, without thinking, "I wish you were human," and he got weird and distant with me. Even I wasn't sure what I'd meant by that.

"Yeah," I responded. "I'm fine."

–

Tamama and I said our good-byes and I descended the stairs in search of a backdoor. I wasn't sure why I felt like I absolutely had to go see Giroro, but for some reason it just felt right. The sun was setting quickly now, and the sky was colored in shades of red fading into orange-and-lavender clouds. From the windows, I could see the fire in the midst of the dark blue earth like a vibrant brushstroke.

I found a sliding glass door that let me out onto a broad veranda. It gave way to a well-kept garden, and I stepped onto the stone walkway imbedded between the flowering bushes and trees before coming into a wider, more open field. I could see, now, the large inground firepit surrounded by a round, built-in ledge to use as seats. Giroro slouched in front of it.

He stiffened as I approached, hearing my footsteps in the grass. "Who is it?"

"Who else?" I said, quietly.

Giroro stayed silent for a moment, unmoving, processing my voice. I hadn't seen his face yet. I wasn't sure to expect, if I would recognize him in the face of a strange body. The idea seemed weird to me. I moved to step down into the firepit and sit on the ledge beside him – the two of us in front of the fire like it used to be. He didn't move, didn't say anything. At least he wasn't protesting.

I felt him look over at me, but I was scared to look back.

"It's been awhile," He said.

Finally, I forced myself to meet his eyes. I froze. They were the same eyes they'd been all those years ago, half-lidded black eyes like two smoking coals. That wasn't why I felt a sudden surge of panic, though. First of all, even sitting down, I could tell he was really tall; I'm above average for a girl and, when standing, I would probably come to about his shoulder. Second of all, he was really fit and wearing a thin white v-neck t-shirt that pulled tight over his abdomen. Third of all, I was going to punch whoever was in charge of designing his face, because he was gorgeous and it freaked me out.

Basically, Giroro was hot and I was mad about it.

I replied, "Uh. Yeah."

He squinted. "What's up with you?"

"It's weird seeing you like this." It wasn't a complete lie.

"You got your wish."

So he remembered. Another wave of panic thrilled fresh through my stomach. "Uh... yeah." I searched my mind for a way to change the subject. "How was Keron?"

Giroro paused thoughtfully. "Different. You don't realize how much a place has changed you until you try to go back home."

"I'm feeling that right now," I agreed, "I've been in California for a few years now."

He turned to the fire, prodding it with his stick. "With Saburo."

"It started out that way. I thought moving in with him would fix all the problems in our relationship. Spoilers: it didn't."

Giroro looked back at me in surprise. I guess he also thought Saburo and I were still together. It had been a year, but the festering wound of failure was still open, and I shrugged and looked away to keep myself from crying. I didn't want sobbing in front of the fire to become a trend with Giroro.

"I'm... sorry," he told me. "It's been really strange and weird and confusing, being back on Pekopon."

I smiled at him, half to reassure him and half to fight back the tears that threatened to spill over onto my cheeks. "You know what we are? We're those people who can fall out of touch for years and years, and then pick right back up where we left off the next time we see each other."

He scowled. "Shut up. I'm being nice because everyone is going through tough stuff right now and I don't want to be a tactless asshole."

"I was under the impression that's what you were anyway."

"Don't get the wrong idea," he snapped, stubbornly turning away from me. I laughed. I was glad he was here.

We talked until it was late and the fire burnt down to a few glowing embers. I wondered what my office coworkers thought of me skipping out – a "no call, no show," they called it, though I guess that didn't matter as much as what I and the others would be doing the next day. The routine of the everyman had been my life for so many years that settling back into saving the world seemed strange and terrifying.

Giroro and I poured water over the last remnants of the fire before standing and watching the column of smoke spiral up into the starry sky. This was also a sight I hadn't seen in a long, long time; the lights of the city drowned out everything but the moon. I closed my eyes and tried to summon the strength and bravery of my adolescent self, wondering if the girl who soared into the sky and fought aerial battles in a Keronian powersuit was still inside me somewhere.

That night, when I finally trudged up the stairs and fell into bed, I curled up and breathed in the campfire smell that had been seared into my skin, my hair, my clothes. It awakened a happiness in me that I hadn't felt in years.

"Meeeeeeting time!" Keroro's voice called from somewhere down the hallway.

I cracked open my eyes. I heard feet scuttling back and forth in front of my door, running up and down the hall. Tamama's voice sang: "Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

"Rise and shine!" Keroro again.

I could hear them running around knocking on random doors. Both of them stopped in front of mine and rattled all four of their fists on it for an absurdly long time – probably around a full minute until I got over my bout of silent rage enough to go after them. Throwing off the covers, I stomped over to the door and pulled it open; both of them fell at my feet.

"And what do you guys think you're doing?" I growled, and I thought a moment before adding, cheerily, "Stupid frogs."

"Good morning, Natsumi," Tamama greeted me.

"There's gonna be a big meeting in the ballroom," Keroro explained, "All ambassadors and their associates and allies are required to attend."

"We are planning a... uh... a plan of attack."

"Planning a plan of attack. Very eloquent," I teased.

Tamama pouted, sticking out his lower lip. "It's morning. I'm tired."

"Fine. Let me get dressed."

Shutting the door in their faces and pulling some clothes out of my bag gave me time to think about the upcoming meeting. I didn't know how we would plan something when we had no idea what was going on, anyway. We needed some way of getting information from a Messenger, but no one knew where to find one, and hell if I was going to bait them in the middle of a parking lot and let them shoot at me again.

On that thought, I heard a loud crash and a scream, accompanied by the shaking of the building. Had they found us? Had they used whatever weapon they used on the UN on us? I put my hands against the dresser to steady myself, bracing myself for the collapse of the ceiling or the crumbling of the floor under my feet, but it never came. The chatter of a hundred worried voices echoed through the house, the din of a panicked crowd.

I threw my clothes on, along with some athletic shoes just in case, and ran down the corridor. My feet seemed to glide over the staircase and fly me to the ballroom, where I walked in to see a hole in the two-story ceiling and, beneath it, the shape of a woman. She was shorter than me and youthful in appearance, with the look of a tan teenaged ko-gal, but with golden eyes and silver hair. She wore a flowing white gown – the garments of an alien civilization.

In the middle of a clearing in the crowd stood Angol Mois.

* * *

_Author's Note: I uploaded chapters 2 & 3 at the same time because I felt bad about promising GiroNatsu and then not delivering any Giroro until this chapter. From now on, though, unless I say otherwise, it will be one chapter a week. I've written a couple chapters ahead so that I have a bit of a buffer, so I plan on updating every Wednesday. That's really tough for me, though. I get so excited about showing you guys what I've written!_


	4. A Fallen Star

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 04: A Fallen Star**

During my time in California, there were a few passing moments where I wondered if Angol Mois ever actually intended on following through with her destruction of Earth. I worried that someday she would finally snap, and none of us would be there to convince her out of it. However, time passed, and the fear slipped into the back of my mind; Mois vanished after the frogs left and did nothing to disturb the planet.

But here she was now, flesh and blood. Mois, as expected of an incredibly long-lived being, looked exactly the same age, though her hair had grown past her shoulders and swept around her young face in voluminous, windswept waves. She gripped her Lucifer Spear tightly and surveyed the room with one steady slow-turning look.

"Where is he?" She demanded, clicking the end of her spear against the tiled floor.

"Lady Mois," Keroro pushed through the crowd. "Are you looking for me?"

Mois whirled to look at him with widening eyes. She spent a good few breathless minutes observing him, recognizing his human body. Then, her shoulders sagged and she relaxed.

"I was so scared," Mois pressed one hand to her face, covering her eyes. "I thought you were dead."

A few of us, myself included, came up to gently escort her away from the crowd of people, away from prying eyes. There were a lot of people in the ballroom unaware of our past with her – Momoka's hired hands, the injured ambassadors, a few friends Fuyuki had called in for a favor on the promise they'd meet real Keronians.

The lanky blonde man beside me spoke suddenly – "Take her to my office." I recognized his voice and looked up at his bespectacled face, and he flashed me a sly, toothy smirk. Kululu. He opened the door outside to the veranda, but took us to a small, dark room at the end of it. Flicking on the lights, he revealed it was an office lined with whirring machines and computer monitors. The mahogany desk was littered with assorted metal trinkets and mechanical objects. I pulled up a wheeled computer chair and gestured for Mois to sit.

Keroro crouched in front of her. "Mois, where have you been? When we went back to Keron, we heard you were in exile."

Exile?

Angol Mois pursed her lips and looked away. I realized, up close, that she looked tired – she clearly hadn't been eating much and she had dark circles under her eyes. The pure, glowing naivety had gone out of her face. Fear bloomed deep in me. Mois was arguably the most powerful being I had ever met, and even her health and happiness had degraded since those old days in my adolescence.

"I was supposed to be in exile, but my father the king pardoned me," She explained, fists tight in her lap. "To appease the masses, he kept me locked in my quarters with only my favorite handmaiden. I have been alone."

"How did you get out?"

Mois swallowed. "My handmaiden has been gracious to me. I was not supposed to hear news of the outside world, but she told me all about Keronian relations with the Pekoponians. A few days ago, when I heard about the attack, she... helped me escape. She will probably be executed."

With that last bit, Mois closed her eyes, and one lone tear escaped down her cheek. My heart ached for her. I'd had no idea.

"Mois," I began, stepping to her and touching her hand, "Were you imprisoned because you refused to destroy this planet?"

"Yes. I am the prophesied Heretic. I have disturbed the Order." She wiped her face with her wrist and continued, "In the religion of the Angols, we have a prophet who declares the order in which the planets must be destroyed. If I don't destroy Pekopon, the universe will be left to atrophy, and all life will eventually run out of resources and die off."

I stared. It had never occurred to me as a young girl, but I suddenly realized Mois and the Angols were part of something much larger than I could even wrap my mind around.

"Guys."

Giroro walked into the office, shutting the door behind him. The night before, I'd mistaken his hair for black, but now I could see it was a very dark wine-red color. It looked as if he'd gotten it cut into a short cropped haircut several months ago, and was just now starting to grow out and hang in his face. He pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"I hate to interrupt the tearful reunion," he continued, "But Momoka is in the ballroom trying to organize everyone, and the Keronian ambassadors are freaking out about there being an Angol here."

"Um... Mois, stay here with Kululu," Keroro instructed.

"Tch. Why do I have to watch her?"

"It's your office!"

I stood up and turned, but in the small, crowded space ended up running into Giroro. He was dressed more conservatively in a military-style jacket today, thankfully, or else my face would have planted right into his chest. I still wasn't used to how hugely tall he was. Intimidated, I shyly lifted my head to glance up at him just as he looked down at me. Maybe he noticed that I stared at him for a millisecond too long, because it was just long enough to make it awkward before I turned away. I excused myself and escaped into the hallway.

I certainly wasn't in any shape to be planning anything. The only thought that kept scrolling through my head was "WHAT THE HELL" in big, blocky letters, like the custom airplane banners.

Koyuki was walking down the corridor with Dororo, looking for us. "Natsumi, there you are. What's going on with – whoa, what's with you?"

I realized my concern and confusion had arranged my face into some kind of upset scowl, and I willed myself to relax.

"I... I'll talk to you about it later," I replied, flashing back to my brief, weird admiration of Giroro's strong jawline and smoky-dark eyes. Rubbing my face, I sighed and continued, "They're trying to figure out what's up with Mois, but I know for a fact she's not here to hurt us or our planet."

"Oh, good," Koyuki breathed in relief.

The others joined us, and we began walking back to the meeting. I think Giroro sensed something was off because he said nothing to me, even though he walked right beside me. To myself, I silently hoped I would get used to his human form. There was no reason for me to be acting like a preteen with a crush; this was the grumpy alien who pitched a tent in my backyard because he was too proud to sleep in a "Pekoponian" household. The whole situation was just really bizarre.

The meeting was a blur for me. My mind was preoccupied with Angol Mois's tidbit about her home life. Maybe I should have been more worried about Slater and the Messengers, but at that point in time, that whole thing seemed distant and unreal. I knew Giroro. I knew Mois. Those two issues seemed a lot more important and central to my life than Momoka's war.

I remember that she had some of her bodyguards (where did she get those people?) track down a number of Messenger towns – entire ghost towns that had been taken over by the Messengers. Government officials and authorities didn't seem to bother these towns, which lead Momoka to believe they had been "bought" under the table with bribe money. What we needed to do was manage to get our hands on a Messenger and drag them back here, where Kululu would interrogate them until we got information on their leader and where to find said leader.

"It's the only way to confirm Slater is the ringmaster," she concluded.

Momoka seemed pretty headstrong and confident now. I recalled her being such a shy young girl – when she wasn't freaking out about Fuyuki, of course. I realized I didn't even know what, if anything, had happened with her crush on my brother. It made me sad that I didn't even know that about my own sibling. Maybe I'd ask him later.

After the meeting, I stopped by Kululu's office. He was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room from Mois, visibly disgruntled. However, Mois seemed lost in thought, resting her elbows on the desktop and supporting her chin with her hands. She brightened when she saw me.

"Natsumi," she greeted.

To Kululu's dismay, I pushed aside some sketchy concepts on paper and sat on top of the desk in front of Mois, crossing my legs. "I need you to tell me more about what's going on with your home world. I know nothing about Angol."

"Well..." Mois frowned. I guess she was thinking about whether she should tell me or not; Angol business seemed to be pretty serious, confidential stuff. "First of all, the universe goes in cycles. It is born and then it dies. The prophet is the last Angol from the last cycle, who destroyed the final planet and initiated the creation of this universe."

I stared at her. This was, already, way over my head. Mois was talking about things on such a massive, unfathomable scale.

"When the new cycle begins, the prophet supposedly receives a vision, detailing in which order the planets must be destroyed. We cannot veer from this order. As long as I allow Pekopon to exist, none of the other Angols can carry out their assignments."

"But what's the big deal? You said something about... resources and atrophy," I urged her on.

She sighed. "If we do not destroy the planets, the universe will be unable to recreate itself. All stars will burn out, all life will die off. Prophecy says there will be a cycle in which a Heretic refuses to destroy their planet, and as the universe's resources deplete, all civilizations in that universe will go to war and fight one another over the remaining resources."

"And you're the Heretic," I said.

"That's what everyone seems to think, and that's how it seems to be so far," Mois agreed, sadly.

"Not that I want you to destroy Earth, but why are you holding out on this?"

Angol Mois looked up and met my eyes. I'd never seen her look so serious about anything, ever. "Keroro loves this planet. I'd even say he likes it better here than on Keron. He has found his passion, and I plan to support him. I've decided for myself that love trumps duty."

I wished I could be as steadfast and self-assured all the time as Mois was at that moment. But another thought lingered beneath that one – we had a planet-destroyer on our side. Suddenly that war didn't seem as hopeless as I'd thought.

–

That night I joined Giroro by the fire again, which was as quiet and uneventful as it used to be when I was a kid (though after that day's events, I needed a bit of "uneventful"). I came back into the house late at night, smelling like wood and ash, and wandered upstairs to my bedroom. In order to reach my room, however, I had to pass Koyuki's, and she opened her door as I walk by.

"Natsumi."

"Hm?"

Instead of answering my inquisitive "hm," she waved for me to come inside.

"I've been wanting to have girl-talk with you like the old days," she declared, throwing herself on her bed. "And I've been going wiiiiild wondering what you were gonna tell me earlier."

My shoulders sagged. I'd just spent the past hour or two trying not to stare at the shadows and fire-light flickering off Giroro's face. I didn't want to think about it anymore.

"I'm having a hard time adjusting to the frogs being human," I half-lied. "It's like having a bunch of random strangers act buddy-buddy with me. I just feel bad."

"Oh, is that all? Yeah, I got used to it. Don't worry." Koyuki hugged her pillow. "I guess that's why you didn't want to say it around Dororo? He isn't bothered by that stuff anyway."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. Actually, he seems happy as long as he's with friends who appreciate him. That's why he's thinking about staying."

I gave Koyuki a confused look. "Staying?"

"He's thinking about staying behind to help out with my dojo," she explained. "He never fit in on Keron and now that they have the technology to give him a human body he kind of just wants to stay here. That'd be really nice. I missed him."

I imagined moving back to Japan and going into the mountains for the weekend to hang out with Koyuki and Dororo. For the first time in a long time, I felt excited about something in the far future. I had plans.

"That sounds great," I said, and I meant it.

* * *

_Author's Note:_ _The point of this chapter is that Mois's life sucks right now. Also, Angol mythology and society are things that exist. How does this play into the overarching plotline? Hmm... Maybe you'll find out. P.S. I've posted a link to my current writing playlist in my profile in case you guys want a sort of "soundtrack" to this fic. A word of warning, though - I have songs on there that served as background music for future chapters that I've written but have not posted yet. So, spoilers? Kind of, maybe?_


	5. The Sword of War

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 05: The Sword of War**

The war became real sometime the next morning. I woke up to the sound of gunshots downstairs. Hastily pulling on a ribbed tanktop, jeans, and some shoes I could run in, I dashed out into the hallway just as Koyuki emerged in her ninja garb. Dororo dropped down from one of the ceiling vents.

"I'm glad I could catch you guys," he said, handing Koyuki a few throwing knives and ninja stars, and tossing a Keronian laser gun in my direction. "Natsumi, I think Kululu has your old power suit in his office."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go," I ran toward the staircase and the sounds of fighting.

As we ran, Dororo explained – some Messengers caught onto Momoka's spy and followed him back to our hideout. There were about twenty of them, but they were highly trained and had the element of surprise on their side. Some of the Keronian ambassadors had already been killed.

"At least they were unaware of our human bodies," Dororo concluded. "Otherwise, they may have targeted us first."

I creased my forehead in thought. "But how would they know who you are? Even if they were going after Keroro for being the first to appeal for peace, they wouldn't know about the whole platoon-"

A bullet ricocheted off the wall. I crouched, pulling out my gun and charging it up. Before, I was nervous about fighting, but I slipped back into it like an old habit. I could see the hooded mask of a Messenger reflected in the glass over a painting hanging on the wall.

"They're just around the corner, fighting with a bodyguard," I told the other two. "Cover me."

"Yes, ma'am," Koyuki saluted me with a grin.

I got a running start and slid around the wall, aiming for the Messenger. I blasted at them; they dodged and turned their gun on me. Momoka's bodyguard acted quickly, grappling the Messenger into a tight hold from behind, and Dororo appeared in a flash, using his swift hands to snap their neck. The Messenger felt to the floor in a crumpled heap.

"Dororo, remember. We're supposed to take one alive," I reminded him.

He sighed in annoyance. "I'm an assassin, not a captor. It's too early for this."

Koyuki pointed, "Look out!" and threw a ninja star. The blade embedded itself in the chest of another hooded figure that whirled around the corner, gun in hand. They slammed against the wall, bleeding but still alive, and aimed for Koyuki.

Giroro appeared, grabbing the Messenger by the hood and slamming them into his knee. He pointed at the now-unconscious figure lying at his feet, "Dororo, can you take this asshole to Kululu?"

"Of course."

Koyuki saluted, "I'll go with him. We work better as a team."

They vanished in a cloud of smoke, taking the Messenger with them. Giroro and I exchanged grim looks and tight-lipped smiles.

"Just like the old days, huh?" I quipped.

"If 'the old days' includes me being a foot taller than you, sure."

Just as I was about to make some smart-ass protest in response, we heard a small explosion elsewhere in the house. The chandelier above us rattled. This summer home was not built to withstand battles. Giroro pulled out his familiar dual guns and nodded at me. I hadn't noticed it before – probably because I'd been avoiding looking at his face – but he still had the scar over his left eye, and something about it and the way he stood, fierce and ready for a fight, brought me back to the memories of us fighting side by side. It awakened a rush of adrenaline and a sense of fearlessness in me.

"Are we gonna go kick some Messenger ass or not?"

"Ladies first," Giroro replied, and we raced down the hallway.

When we got to the grand ballroom, the place was already an absolute mess. The Keronians were trying to hold their own, but many of their own had sustained injuries in the attack at the UN and couldn't fight as well as they usually could. Angol Mois was doing the best she could to blow away a few Messengers at a time without hurting anyone on our side. Mostly she stuck to flailing around her spear instead of using a fractional amount of her Armageddon power.

Tamama was a blur of martial arts, spitting small blasts of energy from his mouth, and he was backed up to Keroro, who'd somehow gotten his hands on a machine gun and was mowing down Messengers left and right. Saburo was the source of the bombs, as he kept drawing small grenades with his magic pen and throwing them at the enemy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Giroro and me walk in together, brandishing our guns.

"Natsumi, Kululu wants you to have this," he yelled, throwing what looked like a floppy disk in my direction. I caught it in the air – my power suit.

Slamming my hand down on a button, the suit unlocked. The world vanished in a flash of light for a second, and suddenly I was wearing metal and spandex; the suit had gotten a bit tight around my chest and hips, but it would do. Giroro nodded at me, his way of wishing me luck, before diving to fight off another Messenger who'd popped up behind us.

I flew into the fray, readying my arm cannons and shooting an enemy who was attempting to sneak up on Momoka. She was keeping a small crowd busy with her own martial arts, something she'd picked up from her parents.

Flipping her last opponent over her head and onto their back on the floor behind her, Momoka sighed and adjusted her blouse. "I never realized these would get in the way during a fight. Grass is always greener, I guess."

"Tell me about it, this suit barely fits," I agreed, grimacing. "So what did you get those for? To impress my brother?"

She rolled her eyes, and I blasted a Messenger struggling to his feet behind her. "Oh, please. Fuyuki liked them small."

"Ah, so you two are dating!"

"We're keeping it on the down-low to avoid those paparazzi dogs," Momoka whirled around, chopping another enemy soldier in the throat. "I'll tell you about it later."

I flew up in the air, grateful for the sheer height and spaciousness of the ballroom, and observed the fight below me. Koyuki and Dororo joined the fight and were busy wiping out a clump of Messengers by the doorway, cutting off their escape route. I summoned an energy shield to deflect a few bullets and retaliated by targeting a cluster of small missiles at the marksman. Another Messenger aimed for the chandelier above me, snapping the chain, and I barely spiraled out of the way before it fell. It almost crashed on top of Mois, but she twirled her staff and chanted one of her Armageddon spells before incinerating it with a minor explosion.

We whittled the Messengers away until there were only two left. One of them downed poison and died before we could do anything about it – a fast-acting method of honorable suicide. The other groveled at our feet and promised to tell us anything. Momoka had some of her bodyguards escort him to the interrogation room, along with the Messenger Giroro had knocked out earlier.

"They followed my spy," Momoka huffed, wiping sweat from her forehead. "I have no idea if that was all of them, or if there are more back at their town base."

"Kululu will find that out for us," Keroro said. The way he said it gave me goosebumps. I most definitely would not want to be tied to a chair in a dark room with Kululu around.

I glanced over at Giroro. He was going around checking all the bodies for a pulse. The whole thing seemed really morbid to me – I'd never killed humans in battle before – but he seemed accustomed to it.

"They might attack again," I mentioned. "We should train every day. Keep our weapons near us."

Keroro nodded. "We need to be prepared."

The mansion wasn't the same after that. Even after we cleaned up, the place felt stained. A lot of the defenseless servants had been killed in the ambush. The Keronians had no way of contacting the mother ship to transport their bodies home, so they, weeping, buried their dead out in the forest. My heart ached for them.

"They knew the risks," Giroro murmured when he caught me watching the procession through a back window. The line of Keronians was heavily guarded by Momoka's personal army; there was no rest for us, no moment of absolute peace. Not anymore.

"I just wish there was some way for them to be buried back home," I said. "With their loved ones."

He looked at me for a second. I wondered if he was thinking about dying on Earth, and where he would be buried. Giroro noticed the concerned look on my face and scoffed.

"Don't worry about me. I don't care where I die," he snapped. For some reason that made me even more sad than the impromptu funeral outside the window.

For all his back-sass, Giroro leaned against the window sill beside me, and we watched the procession together. I glanced at him. "Why aren't you out there with them?"

"I've never been good at funerals, especially because Keron has such a huge emphasis on war and joining the military," he replied. "Hardly anyone lives to old age."

I thought about how I'd been to maybe one or two funerals in my life, and they were all for old relatives I wasn't very close to. Giroro'd probably had to deal with close friends and family dying young around him. I guess that's why he was so tough on his platoon – he knew the meaning of "survival of the fittest." As a kid, I'd thought he was mean, but I felt a renewed admiration for him. I caught myself tracing the line of his throat and collarbones with my eyes, and bashfully turned away, mentally kicking myself. He was a frog. He was a frog he was a frog he was a frog.

"I'm gonna go check in with the others," I stammered, making up excuses. "Kululu's been working on those Messengers for awhile now."

He didn't say anything as I started to walk away, so I turned around to glance back at him. Giroro was quietly staring out the window, his eyes distant. And he was wearing that fucking white t-shirt. In the light from the setting sun I could make out the lines of his tight, hard arm muscles. God damn it.

Giroro turned his head and noticed me staring. I panicked and froze. He totally just saw me checking him out. WEIRD. I apologized and picked up my pace, nearly jogging down the hallway and leaving Giroro looking confused behind me. Koyuki said she got used to it, but when the hell was I ever going to get used to _that_?

About halfway down the corridor, I suddenly realized I didn't want to ask how the interrogation went. I'd had my fill of death and misery for the day. Kululu seemed to get his kicks from tormenting the people around him, but that just wasn't for me. I also realized I hadn't gotten a shower in a couple days. Gross. I sleepily ascended the stairs to make my way to my suite.

The shower was a warm, quiet, safe place. It allowed me to gather my thoughts and relax. I think I stood under the running water for a good half hour before I actually picked up any soap or shampoo. Scrubbing the dirt and blood off my face felt fantastic, though the shampoo and conditioner cleaned the smell of woodsmoke from my hair; I didn't realize til just then that it had stuck to me, and I just got used to it.

I turned off the water and tied my towel around my body. The mirror fogged up, so I leaned over the vanity and rubbed a big clear spot in the middle of the glass. I gasped. My hand flew up to where the bullet had left a cut on my right cheekbone. The bloody scab had washed off in the shower. leaving a thin white cluster of scar tissue – my first trophy of war.

* * *

_Author's Note: I almost forgot to update by Wednesday because I was marathoning Kill la Kill... Oops. I don't have a whole lot to say about this chapter other than fight scenes are fun to write._


	6. Put Out the Sun

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 06: Put Out the Sun**

That night I found out a few secret rooms and passages had been added on to the mansion after the arrival of the Keronian ambassadors; Kululu's office branched off into a maze of metal corridors and an underground laboratory. After I got dressed post-shower and headed downstairs to join the others, I was taken into a room that looked much like a police station's interrogation room, with a one-sided window that peered into an adjoining room.

Through the window, I could see Kululu stalking in circles around the two captured Messengers, pausing every few steps to sweep a patient, considering gaze over a tray of painful-looking torture devices on a table in front of the captives. He took their masks off and I could see their faces. One was a teenage boy, barely over the age of sixteen, and the other was a bearded truck of a man.

Kululu seemed to have realized early on the older Messenger would be tough to break, so he picked on the teenager. The boy was trembling and whimpering. I noticed Kululu held an empty injection needle – the Messengers had been drugged, but I didn't know with what.

"At this point, he's just playing with them," Dororo leaned in and murmured to me. "We know there are more of them and they alerted the others that they were planning to ambush us."

I tensed. "That's dangerous. They could spread word to other groups."

"We know. We're trying to find out where their center of operations is, but I think these ones are too low in rank to even be trusted with that information."

Some time went by. I tried to busy myself by discussing stuff with the others in the room, since a lot of us were unskilled and inexperienced in the art of keeping a straight face while Kululu went about his work. When the boy started screaming, the Keronians and Angol Mois all seemed unfazed; for all their incompetence, I often forgot they were soldiers underneath it all.

Giroro glanced at me a few times, but said nothing to me. I knew he could sense my discomfort around him, especially before my shower earlier that day. He looked quizzical, confused, and I felt like I was being dismantled and analyzed. I didn't want him to catch on to whatever bizarre, sick … something I felt toward him. I could barely even admit it to myself.

After the interrogation was over and Momoka's hired hands went to move the Messengers into a jail space Kululu had built onto the house, Giroro glanced up at the clock.

"It's late," he grumbled. "Did you still want to make a fire?"

The proposition shocked me. I never thought he considered me when he made bonfires; I always figured it was something he did for himself, and just didn't mind when I joined him.

"I-I think I'm just gonna go to bed."

Giroro shrugged. "I'm tired, too. Just thought I'd ask."

I turned and hurried down the hall, face burning, using anger to block out anything else I was feeling. Koyuki called my name and trotted to catch up to me.

"Hey," she said. "Did something happen with you and-"

"No," I snapped.

Koyuki winced at my premature reaction, pulling back from me. "Whoa, Natsumi. You know you can trust me. Is this about what you mentioned the other night?"

I glanced around us, making sure the hallway was totally empty.

"I'm pissed off," I confessed. "Giroro is totally cute."

I clapped my hands to my reddening face to hide the frustration and embarrassment. For a second, I was worried Koyuki was appalled by me. Then I heard her burst out laughing, and I looked at her through my fingers.

"Oh my god, is that all?" She giggled, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Don't laugh at me!"

"No, no, Natsumi. If this is really something that's bothering you, let's find a way to keep your mind off it, okay?" Koyuki clasped my hands with hers. "How about we head out in the woods to train every day?"

I relaxed. It felt good to get that off my chest to Koyuki, and she always knew how to make me feel better. "Thanks, Koyuki. That sounds great."

–

The next few weeks were a blur.

I confronted my little brother about his relationship with Momoka. He explained that things started off rocky – she confessed on the last day of high school and he rejected her. Right after that is when the accident happened and Momoka had to go to work as an 18-year-old woman. She apparently matured a lot (getting a full-time job will often do that to people), and after they mended their friendship, the old feelings surfaced and they started dating casually. I was glad everything ended so well for them, especially Momoka; she'd managed to nab her high school crush without being a tunnel vision stalker.

Keroro was a huge help in raising the spirits of the remaining ambassadors. I finally understood why he'd been so acclaimed on Keron before his sad attempts to invade Earth. His charisma and work ethic made him a natural-born leader, particularly when he channeled that motivation in productive ways instead of just using it to make Gundam models. Tamama was always right there by him. After all these years, it was nice to see two people as steadfast and unchanged as those two.

Kululu had actually taken my brother under his wing, which was kind of terrifying, but Fuyuki's a smart kid when it comes to alien stuff. He picked up on Kululu's particular brand of science quickly and helped churn out some basic Keronian weaponry and defenses for our little makeshift army. Kululu himself continued harassing the captured Messengers, though Dororo was right – they couldn't give us much more information than they already had.

Speaking of Dororo, he joined Koyuki and I out in the forest every morning. It was actually incredibly helpful, as Koyuki's clan's style of fighting centered very heavily on self-defense and merely incapacitating your opponent, while Dororo was able to teach me some basic assassin moves. I was far from being a martial arts master, but anything would be helpful in a fight. Plus I hadn't exercised since high school, and playfully sparring with two skilled ninja on a daily basis whooped my butt back into a stronger and more athletic shape.

I wasn't sure what Saburo did. He kept to himself, mostly, or helped Momoka plan things, or watched over Angol Mois. I feel like I went out of my way to make sure I didn't know what Saburo was up to, and he was a pretty independent, mysterious person anyway.

Giroro had his own training regimen that involved the exercise equipment in Momoka's basement (she had a gym down there, apparently, that her bodyguards used) and a shooting range Kululu installed. I would pass him in the hall sometimes or see him at meetings, but because I woke up so early to train with Koyuki and Dororo, I was usually too tired to join him at the fireside. I wasn't a complete asshole about it; after a few days of the new routine, I apologized and told him I probably couldn't come out every night since I had stuff going on. Giroro seemed to understand.

Then the second attack came. Kululu installed a security alarm in the jail, so our first sign something was wrong was when a loud whining sound blared throughout the entire mansion. I leaped out of bed, grabbed my power suit cube, and went for it. Before I could get downstairs, though, a huge explosive noise rocked the house.

By the time most of us got to the jail, there was a trail of injured security guards lying about the hallway, but no one was dead or seriously hurt. The only problem was the two cell doors hanging wide open with no one inside.

Paul crouched down beside one of his fallen coworkers. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"It was another girl, like the one who hangs around the sergeant," the man rasped out, coughing. "She had a spear and powers just like her. Dark hair, dark eyes."

We turned to look at Angol Mois, who had joined the fray. She shrank back from the crowd of prying eyes. "They – what? But why would an Angol be working with them?"

"That's something we'll find out later," Kululu announced calmly, holding up what looked like a GPS, "As soon as the tracking device I installed under that kid's skin kicks in. Kukuku!"

I silently thanked Kululu for being a step ahead of everyone – of course he would plan for an escape. In fact, he probably wanted the prisoners to escape. This new information about the Messengers, though, was terrifying. Angol Mois herself was distant, withdrawn, lost in a cloud of her own stress. I could only imagine the kind of betrayal she felt from her own people over the past few years, and now this happened.

"Dark hair and dark eyes," Mois thought aloud. "Sounds like a Serpa."

We turned to her, surprised. Paul moved closer to her, taking one of her hands. "Lady Mois, if we are, in fact, facing an Angol, we need as much information about your people as is possible."

Mois looked at him sadly for a moment. Even now, she hesitated.

"Angol is not just the name of the planet, but also the name of my home country and clan," she explained. "There are four other countries besides Angol. One of them is Serpa. The Serpas are identifiable by their sleek black hair, pale skin, and dark eyes. They have always been... critical of the Angol clan."

"I can only assume, then, that for a Serpa to appear here and work against us... This is directly linked to your house arrest," Paul concluded.

Kululu crossed his arms. "Interesting... It would seem that, since others of your kind cannot destroy this planet, they have decided to instead engulf it in war."

Poor Mois looked more distraught and confused than ever. She'd returned to this planet looking for an escape from her own world, but instead found herself right in the middle of a conflict with her own people.

The rest of the day was a sluggish and tired one. Koyuki and I decided not to train; the wind and clouds outside made the woods a bit chilly for our tastes. Kululu made a few more attempts to get in contact with the Keronian mother ship to ask for a supply of Angolstone, but the same bizarre thing happened as it usually did – just a high pitched noise that threatened to burst everyone's eardrums. Kululu had a theory that the Messengers were using some kind of alien technology to create a sound barrier underneath the mother ship.

That didn't help at all. I was afraid that girl wasn't the only Angol (in this sense "Angol" refers to everyone from the planet Angol, not "Angol" as in from Mois's clan – it's confusing, but you'll get used to it) to drop by and help out the Messengers. Having Mois around was a big help for our sense of morale, until you remembered she was one of the youngest of her kind and literally any of the enemy Angols could be wiser, more experienced, and more powerful.

I threw on a scarf and sweater that night, right at sundown, when the clouded sky seemed to turn bluish-purple behind the screen of gloom. Stepping out on the veranda, I saw Giroro in the distance, throwing logs onto the fire and prodding them until a cloud of glowing ashes bloomed into the air. He glanced back at me with raised eyebrows when he heard my boots crunching the grass underfoot.

"Well, well, well," he commented. "Look who made it."

"I couldn't sleep," I grumbled, embarrassed.

Giroro shrugged and took a seat next to me. "It's gonna get chilly tonight, so I was thinking of cutting this short and going to train afterwards."

"I could go with you," I said. "Show off the new moves I learned from Koyuki and Dororo."

"Hmm, Dororo's been teaching you things? I'm kind of scared now."

"Oh, yeah? And why's that?"

"Even as a teenager, you kicked my ass," Giroro rubbed his neck, as if massaging an old wound. "The first time we met, you threw me out a window using only a leek and your school suitcase."

I snorted in amusement. "I cannot believe you remember that."

"How could I forget?" He replied. Our eyes met when he said that, and we held each other's gaze for a moment. Giroro was the first to turn away.

The rest of the evening we spent gossiping about the other house guests or making smalltalk about plans to fight the Messengers. The wind got bitter sometime after dark, so Giroro dumped some water onto the fire. We walked inside together; I teased him about our upcoming sparring match in the basement.

"What are you gonna do, beat me with a leek again?" He retorted.

"Only if you want me to."

Giroro gave me a look. "Was that supposed to be suggestive?"

"Ew!" I crinkled my nose. "That's disgusting. You're disgusting."

I wondered if anyone could hear us talking and laughing all the way down to the basement. We were being pretty loud, and the mansion seemed deserted – everyone was stressed and exhausted, and they usually turned in early.

We found an area in the basement's gym that was just empty, flat mat, like the kind of mat they lay down for wrestling matches. Giroro and I took off our shoes; he tossed his jacket aside, and I pulled off my scarf and sweater, revealing the tanktop I wore underneath them. Using the hair tie around my wrist, I put my long, wavy hair up in a high ponytail.

"A'ight," I shouted, pounding one fist into the palm of my other hand. "Let's do this."

Both of us dropped into fighting stances, carefully circling each other like predatory big cats, before finding ourselves locked in a whirling frenzy of fists and sly footing. When one of us tripped, the other clasped arms and hands and we both went down, balancing off each other for support. I hadn't felt a challenge like that since my days as a high school athlete. My heart rate was up, my body warm, adrenaline pumping.

There's nothing quite like relieving mental stress by focusing solely on survival. I respected Giroro and I knew he was good – one wrong hit could throw me to the mat. I kicked, he blocked; he punched, I dodged. Finally, Giroro managed to get a leg looped around the back of one of mine, and I felt myself falling. In a panic I grabbed his shirt collar. He came down with me.

On the floor, I felt the high of combat melt and flow out of my body. We laid next to each other for awhile, both of us panting and sweating through our clothes. Finally, I started laughing.

"You wouldn't have been able to do that if I wasn't wearing skinny jeans," I remarked.

"Don't be a sore loser," he said, sitting up. He glanced over at me, and did a double take when he noticed the scar on my cheek. "When did you get that?"

I touched it. "Oh, this? It's from when I got shot after Saburo and I went to the airport. The bullet only skimmed me but it was deep enough, apparently."

I sat up and turned around to face him. When we sat like this, looking at each other, our scars were on the same side – mirror images. Without thinking about it, I reached out and brushed my fingertips over his scar. Giroro stiffened, wincing away from me. I snapped my hand back to my chest.

"I-I'm sorry," I stammered, face reddening. "I wasn't thinking."

"Natsumi, what's going on?"

His words sent a shock of panic through me. My heart pounded. "What are you talking about?"

I raised my head to look him in the eyes. He searched my face for the answer to his question, but I silently held my ground.

"Nevermind," Giroro sighed in exasperation. "Let's go. I'm tired as hell."

* * *

_Author's Note: What a couple of tsundere assholes. I wonder what will happen... Actually I don't, specifically, because I have up to chapter 11 written and saved in my documents. Some exciting stuff coming up in the next few chapters! Thank you for reading!_


	7. Condemnation

**Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 07: Condemnation**

"You seem tired," Koyuki said the next morning, wearing a teasing grin. "It's almost like you were out late last night."

I glared at her. Dororo looked back and forth between us, confused.

"I just couldn't sleep."

"Yeah, and when people can't sleep they apparently stand in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs and talk and laugh with themselves."

I could feel my cheeks burning and the weight of Dororo's inquiring eyes targeting the back of my head. "Koyuki, oh my god. Shut up."

"Lady Natsumi, I hope I'm not stepping outside my limits," Dororo said, "But I can't help but wonder if it's a coincidence that Giroro was also very tired and irritable this morning."

My head snapped to face Koyuki. "I can't believe you told him!"

"I didn't say anything!"

Dororo intervened, "In Koyuki's defense, everyone has been rather aware of your avoidance of Giroro recently, including him."

I fell silent. The woods still had a bit of chill in the morning air, but I could hear the distant, echoic chirping of birds among the high branches. My mind kept repeating that night before in the basement – that brief moment of intimacy when I touched his face, the thrill in the pit of my stomach when he attempted to confront me but backed out of it. For the first time, I had thought, maybe – but whatever that thought was, I squashed it before it could grow. The only problem was it had already put down roots in my mind.

"I missed him," I blurted. And it was true – before I moved out of my mother's house and in with Saburo, I had stood in my backyard, in the patchy bit of grass and dirt that had been permanently screwed up by Giroro's stupid tent, and cried a lot. I felt like I was leaving behind the last remnants of that phase of my life. I thought, honestly, that I'd never see him again.

Dororo shrugged. "Why don't you tell him that?"

"We're not like that," I said. "It's hard for us to be honest. Usually we just kind of get each other."

Koyuki and Dororo shared a knowing look.

"I think he'd appreciate it more than you think he would if you just opened up to him," Koyuki urged me. "Obviously training with us hasn't worked. You can't run away forever."

Instead of responding, I just made a really loud, exasperated groaning noise. She laughed, and the three of us dropped back into our fighting positions. The conversation ended. I guess they sensed they wouldn't be able to push me into doing anything I didn't want to do. However, I took a few more hits from Dororo than I usually did; my blocks and dodges were slow compared to his quick strikes. My thoughts distracted me.

Later that morning, as we were walking in, we saw Fuyuki emerge from the back veranda and wave to us. He cupped his hands over his mouth, shouting, "Meeting!" I remembered Kululu's GPS tracker, and we hurried into the mansion to see what was up.

Walking into the ballroom was a bit depressing; a lot of the soldiers, volunteers, servants, and ambassadors were either seriously hurt from the Angol attack the other day, or dead. Compared to that first meeting when Mois arrived, our numbers had been seriously reduced.

Momoka had pushed a crate, probably a leftover from the kitchen, into the middle of the ballroom and climbed on top of it. "Attention, everyone, please! I have two pretty big announcements today!"

The crowd fell into silence, save for a few concerned whispers hissing in the corners of the room. I looked around at everyone's faces. The Keronian ambassadors looked tired, world-weary, and stressed, though many of them had recovered from the UN attack a month ago.

"First of all, due to our disconnect from the outside world, I have just now heard some distressing news about the mass media," Momoka confessed. "Now that Keron has threatened Earth, the Messenger faith is becoming increasingly popular, and some of its more public members include politicians and other authority figures in positions of power."

I gasped. No way. A murmur moved through the crowd like ocean waves.

"On that same note, after the meeting is over, I have a matter I want to privately discuss with the following people – Fuyuki Hinata, Natsumi Hinata, Koyuki Azumaya, Saburo Mutsumi, and Angol Mois," She paused, looking pointedly at each of us with a solemn expression on her face. "Continuing on to our second, and more positive, point, Kululu has successfully tracked one of the escaped Messengers."

She held out her hand, stepping backwards off the box, to give center stage to Kululu. Sometimes I forgot he was a soldier too and, as such, had to exert at least some effort to train himself and stay fit; he hopped onto the crate effortlessly without so much as a grunt of exertion. Kululu grinned that lop-sided smirk and held up the GPS device.

"We have mounted a bit more evidence that Vincent Slater may, in fact, be the leader of the Messengers," he explained. "According to my tracker, the escaped Messengers were taken from their holding cell here, to the Messenger town, and then to an airport at which they took what appears to have been some sort of private jet or helicopter directly to Slater's property in Nevada in the United States."

I glanced at Momoka. So, her intuition had been accurate, after all; unfortunately, she didn't seem proud or excited about this incredible new information. I wondered what was bugging her, and if it was related to why she called the other kids and me to a private meeting after this one.

Koyuki stepped forward suddenly, hand to her chest. "If we are planning an attack on Slater's estate, I would suggest that we seek shelter from a few distant relatives of mine that split away from the clan and moved to America. I believe a few of them own a restaurant near Las Vegas."

I saw a few approving nods ripple through the crowd. Momoka walked back in front of the crate. "I am currently discussing plans and strategies on how to go about this with Keroro and the other ambassadors, but we will definitely take that into consideration. Thank you, Koyuki."

Later, after a few large group discussions regarding Slater, the Messengers, and the possibility of Angols working with them, the meeting was adjourned. Fuyuki, Koyuki, Saburo, Mois, and myself were pulled aside into Momoka's study. The serious look on Momoka's face awakened an uneasiness in me. She walked behind her desk and pulled out the remote, summoning the television from behind the wall; she flipped to a news program.

I couldn't believe my eyes. On the TV screen was a news anchor warning viewers to watch out for six people – us. Thankfully they were using old pictures from our teenage years.

"Wh... What is this?" Mois asked, dumbstruck.

"When I thought that Slater had access to information about us, I didn't know this is how far it went," Momoka explained. "Angol Mois's old video messages to her father were leaked to news programs all over the world yesterday. I can only assume this is the work of an Angol who feels bitterness and resentment at Mois due to her... heresy."

I felt numb, my head whirling in disbelief. We were international criminals! The news anchor accused us of being spies working for the Keronian invasion! I pulled out a chair and sat down; this was too much for me.

"All I can say is that when we go to America, I will have to spend a lot of money on bribery and fake documents, and we'll have to take measures to disguise ourselves," Momoka continued. "Hopefully we can iron out this situation before any of us gets hurt."

–

"Hey, Natsumi..."

I froze. Even though it had only been a month, my life in California seemed so far away. Saburo's voice saying my name felt strange, foreign. I turned to face him. He looked different, like being around the frogs had given him a bit of his old spark back, and despite myself I felt a little rush, the remembrance of a forgotten crush.

"I know after everything, things have gotten weird between us," he said, avoiding my eyes, "But being back here really reminded me of the old days. I've been thinking about you, the person you used to be, and I think Cali really changed us for the worst."

I didn't want to tell him I'd barely thought of him at all.

Saburo continued, "Anyway, I just wanted to ask, one last time... Is there any chance we can work this out? If you haven't felt what I have over the past month, just say so. I'll move on for real this time."

My first thought, to my own sense of guilt and pity for him, was that I didn't care at all for Saburo anymore. The second was the painful and terrifying realization that I had been thinking about Giroro as much as Saburo thought about me over the last few weeks.

"Saburo, I'm sorry," I finally told him. "I just don't feel that way about you anymore."

Though his eyes looked sad, he smiled and nodded. "I expected that, but you never know how things will turn out if you don't at least try."

We exchanged one last bittersweet smile before I turned to walk away, but Saburo called my name again and I stopped.

"When you left me, you told me you didn't know what you wanted," he said. "But I think you do. There's a reason I didn't ask you out til the frogs left."

He walked away down the hallway, leaving me standing there alone and confused.

I spent the rest of the day down in the basement, wailing on a punching bag. There were a few moments where I felt faint and realized I'd forgotten to eat or hydrate myself, and when I sat down with a few snacks I found my hands were shaking from how hungry I was. My mind just wasn't there with me that day. It was in California with Saburo, it was in Nevada fighting the Messengers, and it was back home in my backyard at the fireside with Giroro.

Finally, doused in my own sweat and panting so hard my breathing was hoarse, I collapsed onto the mat. The coolness of the basement floor felt good against my red-flushed face. I think I fell asleep like that, because the next thing I knew I was propped up against the wall and Giroro was sitting next to me, holding a couple bottles of water.

"Oh, uh... Hey..." I greeted sleepily. When I spoke, I realized my throat was dry and sore, and I fell into a violently coughing fit.

He said nothing, but shoved one of the water bottles at me. I accepted it with a weak "thank you" and chugged the whole bottle, wiping some of the water off my lips with the back of my hand.

"What the hell were you doing, exercising like that," Giroro growled under his breath, turning away. "Scared the shit out of me. I thought something was seriously wrong when I saw you lying there like that."

"Aww, you really do care," I teased. As much as he talked big, I knew that was his way of fussing over me.

Instead of retaliating with another smart-ass remark, Giroro stayed quiet. We sat there for awhile, shoulder-to-shoulder, as I sipped on the other water bottle he'd handed to me. Saburo's words – "I think you do know" – flitted through my mind, as well as Dororo and Koyuki's advice to me earlier. I felt sick, panicky, but I took a deep breath.

"Right when I was about to move in with Saburo, I went out in the backyard to the patch of dirt where your tent used to be," I said, wondering if he noticed I was shaking. "I cried. I felt like I was leaving you behind. It was the last bit of evidence I had that you'd ever existed."

I was scared to look at him, but out of my peripheral vision I saw him grip the bottle of water in his hand a little tighter. The cheap, thin plastic crinkled and popped.

I felt my eyes well up with tears, and I took a moment to wipe them away. "I hope that's not a totally weird thing to say. I missed you a lot and after all this time I just... feel weird around you. I guess I feel like I betrayed you by moving away."

"You're an idiot," he grumbled, though his voice was unusually low, quiet.

"There's something else, too – I'm not used to you being in this body. It makes me feel shy and nervous around you."

Giroro looked like he'd been about to insult me, but after I told him that, he chewed his lip in thought and stood.

I scrambled to my feet and walked after him. "Hey – I just spilled my fucking guts to you. I hope you realize how much courage that took on my part. The least you could do is -"

"Why do you care?" He snapped, whirling to face me.

Taken aback, I took a step away from him, gripping my fists at my side. Dororo and Koyuki had been wrong, wrong, wrong. He was so mad. But I was mad, too – mad and hurt. Recovering from his sudden turn, I stepped forward, standing in front of him with my hands on my hips. A few remnants of my tears streamed out of the corner of my eyes and down my cheeks, but I didn't move to wipe them away. We stared each other down.

"Fuck you," I snapped, and stormed toward the stairs.

Before I could make it to the staircase, though, he grabbed my arm. I pivoted and went to smack him, but Giroro blocked it, deflecting my hand; he let me go and I backed away.

"I'm sorry." His voice trembled. My heart constricted and the air went out of my lungs.

I started crying for real, fat tears rolling out of my eyes. "What is your problem?"

His hands went to my face, cradling my jawline. I could feel the callouses on his palms scratching over the scar on my cheekbone. Giroro tilted my head back to look at him, and kissed me. My mind went blank. He smelled like musk and woodsmoke. His lips were soft. My body acted without permission; I felt myself sliding my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss, and suddenly he was pulling me against him by my waist.

I broke the kiss, and he rested his forehead against mine. Alarms went off in my head. I pulled back, shaking, stunned. "I-I'm sorry," I stammered, panicked. "I have to go. I'm really, really sorry."

I ran up the stairs and didn't look back. The scenery blurred by me, like in one of those old movies where they put the characters on a sort of treadmill and scroll a painting behind them. When I got to my room, I slammed the door and locked it. The silence in my room was deafening. I fell to my knees on the floor and wept.

* * *

_Author's Note: Do you know how long I've been waiting to post this chapter? A long time. Like, really long. I'm very excited about that little turn of events at the end, there. How will the kids get to America without getting caught and/or attacked by the Messengers? And what will go down between Giroro and Natsumi? Stay tuned..._


	8. Hide and Seek

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 08: Hide & Seek**

Knock, knock, knock. I sat up in bed, wrapping my blanket around me. "Who is it?"

"It's Koyuki! I was about to go in the woods to train and..." She paused. "Wait, are you okay? You sound hoarse."

"Is Dororo out there?"

"No, he went ahead after we noticed you weren't awake ye – OH!"

I cracked open my door and grabbed Koyuki. After dragging her inside, I shut the door and locked it. My cheeks burned bright red, my eyes tired and heavy from crying.

"Uh-oh," she said. "Things didn't go well with Giroro?"

"More like the opposite of that. It went really well. Like, too well." I pushed my messy hair out of my face and rubbed my eyes. This was so embarrassing.

Koyuki creased her forehead. "So, what happened, exactly?"

I could barely bring myself to say it. "He, uh – well, we – he kissed me. God FUCKING dammit."

"He – oh gosh. Well, I mean, did you enjoy it?"

I yowled in frustration, pulling the blanket over my head and throwing it back on my mattress in a haphazard pile. Shaking my head vigorously, I screamed, "YES. Yes, I did."

Huffing in irritation, I turned, resigned, to face Koyuki, planting my hands on my hips.

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" I said, finally, after I'd calmed down a bit. "He's a god damn frog alien. This isn't even his real body. He's, like, two feet tall."

Poor Koyuki looked at me in distress. For the first time throughout this whole situation, she had no sound advice to offer me. So I continued with my ranting.

"Plus, I'm not even sure he wants anymore to do with me after last night. We made out for a couple minutes and then I freaked out and ran the fuck out of there. Oh, god, what am I even going to do or say when I see him again? 'Oh hey sorry about last night but I was suddenly seized by panic and anxiety over potentially being in a relationship with a fucking two foot tall member of an amphibious alien race.'"

"Natsumi, I know you probably want to keep this as secret as possible," Koyuki interrupted, "but I feel like we should at least tell Dororo. He is probably the colleague Giroro respects the most in terms of intelligence and ability, and he could talk to him about it."

"I feel like a dumb middle schooler asking her friends to talk to her crush for her."

She put her hand on my shoulder. "The last month has been weird and confusing for everyone. We can work this out. You stay here, I'll tell everyone you're sick, and I'll talk to Dororo, okay?"

I sighed, smiling. "Thanks, Koyuki."

The next few hours passed uneventfully. Part of me almost hoped Giroro would come to my room and try to talk things out with me, but I didn't know what I would even say. I just wished I could undo that kiss. A few times I closed my eyes and tried to magically will away my feelings for him. That's what they were now – romantic feelings, for Giroro – and I couldn't deny it anymore. There was physical intimacy, a connection built on chemistry, that backed up the thoughts and emotions buzzing around in my head.

Then, as I was lying in bed lost in thought, someone pounded frantically on my door. I wrapped myself in my blanket again and made my way over to it, hoping the person behind it was Koyuki or Dororo, or even Giroro himself. But I opened the door to Keroro.

"What did you do?" He asked in an accusing tone, crossing his arms.

I tried to fake a(n unconvincing) cough. "I'm sick."

"Bullshit. Giroro is being more of a jerk than usual, and he just volunteered to go ahead to America with the scouting team."

"What?"

"They're leaving tomorrow morning," Keroro said. "I never know what is going on with you guys, but if you have something to say to him before then, you have the rest of today."

"How many scouts are there?" I asked.

"Small group. Probably around five or six, including Giroro and Angol Mois, in case they need to fight an Angol."

I tried not to let my distress show on my face. I figured if I looked like crap, it would just help me look more sickly anyway. "Why would he do this?"

"Whenever Giroro does something risky like this," he replied, "It's because he's trying to escape, or to take his mind off something else."

–

I hadn't even bothered changing. A few people turned to stare at me as I ran by, barefoot and wearing only a tanktop and boxers. My hair was unbrushed and piled on top of my head in a messy bun. My mascara from yesterday was still smudged under my eyes, but I didn't care. Finally, I reached one of the garage bays, where a few of Momoka's hired soldiers, a Keronian in frog form, Angol Mois, and Giroro were loading luggage into a large SUV.

Though she'd been standing next to Giroro, Mois quieted and ducked out of the situation when she saw me coming. Giroro turned and noticed me. When he looked at me, I froze mid-step. His expression was totally ambiguous, impossible to read. It was like there was an invisible barrier over his face that kept me from seeing the subtleties in his dark eyes and the features of his face.

"Please just let me leave," he said, the tone of his voice completely flat. "I shouldn't have done that out of nowhere like that. I'm sorry. But it's still an open wound for me, too."

I touched my hand to my stomach, as if his words had physically stabbed me.

"Just don't die," I told him. I wanted to tell him how confused I was, how awful I felt about the night before, how I actually adored him. But my mouth stopped working, the words trapped in the back of my throat. I became quiet. Tears threatened to spill over my lower lashes.

Giroro eyed me for a moment. He frowned, but I was just glad some kind of emotion had returned to his face. "We'll talk when you get to Nevada."

As much as I didn't want to wait, I knew I wouldn't get anywhere with him at that moment. He was too pissed off. But I heard the secret promise underlying his harsh words – the vow that he'd live long enough for me to see him again.

"Fine. I'll see you on the other side," I said. Before he turned away from me without another word, I thought I saw him relax; the look on his face softened just a little.

I walked out of there feeling a strange mix of hopefulness and defeat. Mentally, I outlined everything I already knew for sure – I had feelings for Giroro, he had feelings for me, and I had no fucking idea what we were going to do about it. I didn't even know what I would say to him when I reached America. My mind was still playing tug of war between "he's hot and I feel happy and comfortable around him" and "he's not actually a hot human guy, he's the tiny alien who lived in my backyard."

I volunteered to take over a spot in the night watch. Giroro had been one of them, and it felt right for me to pick up where he'd left off. The other watchman stationed in the same spot as me was a blue Keronian with a cartoon bomb as his insignia – you know, the kind that are round and black with the little white fuse sticking out of the top – named Niyaya. We didn't say much to each other aside from casual smalltalk about the fight and "could I have some of that?" when the other brought snacks or energy drinks, but he seemed nice enough.

One night he apparently couldn't stand it anymore. "So, are you and the corporal like... a thing?"

I'd been half a gulp into an energy drink and spat it out, coughing violently.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Niyaya apologized frantically. "It's just that, well, everyone has noticed the way you guys act and... the way Giroro was when he came back to Keron... I thought, maybe-"

"Wait, 'the way Giroro was when he came back to Keron'?" I shot back. He had told me that readjusting to life on his own planet was hard, but I didn't know the details.

"Y-yeah. He was really depressed all the time. Never fit in. The whole platoon was like that, but he was the worst by far. There were rumors he'd had a Pekoponian lover."

"And you thought it was me." Niyaya wouldn't say it, but that's what he was getting at.

He nodded bashfully, and I sighed.

"Nothing happened between us back then," I told him. "Things are just really confusing right now."

"Is it because he's human?"

At first, I didn't answer. The thought was a painful one. I had never changed species; Giroro was into me the way I was born, the way he'd always known me. I wasn't sure I'd developed these feelings before or after he'd turned human. If I only liked him because he made a cute guy... The idea upset me. Maybe my feelings weren't as genuine as I thought they were, and I'd just end up hurting him.

"I don't know," I replied.

"Lady Natsumi, look out!"

At the sound of Dororo's voice, I pivoted just in time to find a Messenger's gun pointed at my face. I ducked and pushed myself forward instinctively, shoving my fist into their midsection. A shot went off. That familiar ringing noise returned to my ears, but I ignored it; the Messenger had expected to catch me off guard and was no match for me when I hooked my leg around theirs and took them down. Niyaya had ample time to find a laser gun by then and blasted the Messenger in the head. They fell limp under me.

Dororo leaped down from a tree, in a fighting stance.

"Was he the only one?" I asked him.

"There were five total. Assassins, I think," he glanced down at the dead body on the ground. "This one evaded me and went straight for you."

I remembered what Momoka told us – that the world thought of us as turncoats and spies now. "What happened to the other four?"

"I took down three. We have to get inside, now."

It only took a few moments for us to contact the other patrol guards and flip on the emergency siren. As we ran inside, I held down the button on the walkie-talkie. "Fuyuki, are you in the security camera room? Can you get a visual on the intruder?"

"I'm here," he responded, his voice buzzing between walkie static. "He's headed for the guest bedrooms."

Dororo and I exchanged glances. Momoka was in the master suite, Fuyuki was on cameras, and I was right here, so the assassin was going for either Saburo or Koyuki. As much as I was certain they could hold their own, especially with several of the platoon's rooms right there, I didn't want to take a chance. A few of the other patrol guards joined us and we rushed up the twin staircases together.

I arrived at the top of the stairs first and barely dodged getting fried to a crisp by Tamama's rage breath. At least he still had that in human form, I thought in exasperation. The Messenger was hidden around a corner in the hallway, near my bedroom, along with Mois's now-empty room. Keroro and Tamama were shooting at him and guarding Koyuki's door.

Sliding in front of the door, I knocked. "Hey, Koyuki, you okay?"

There was a jiggling of the doorknob, and Saburo opened the door from inside, ushering me in. Kululu had pulled out a first aid kit and was tending to Koyuki, whose pajamas were stained with blood.

"Don't squirm so much," he scoffed, as if it was nothing but a scraped knee. "Your heart rate will increase and you will lose blood faster."

She nodded weakly. Even after Saburo closed the door behind me, muffling the sounds of fighting, I couldn't move. I just stared.

"She'll be fine," Saburo assured me. "Kululu's way more advanced than us. He can give her hospital-level treatment."

"I'm about to give her a tranquilizer if she won't let me take this goddamn bullet out," the Sergeant Major snapped. Koyuki reared up, arching her back in pain. I saw her blink back tears.

Something broke in me. Maybe I'd been under too much physical and emotional stress – who knows. I ripped my power suit cube out of my pocket and activated it, blasting through the door and nearly knocking over Keroro, Tamama, and Dororo. I held my hands out in front of me, summoning two heat-seeking missiles.

The Messenger saw them coming. He managed to shoot one mid-air and force it to explode. I threw a shield up in time to protect myself and the others from the fiery blast, though the hallway was absolutely scorched. The other missile hit its target. He barely had time to let out a horrified scream before the explosion shook the house. A gust of wind told me I'd blown out the side of the mansion.

"Damn, Natsumi," Tamama murmured. "I thought I had anger issues."

I suddenly realized I had completely destroyed my own guest bedroom in the process of, well, destroying the Messenger. My door was broken. I walked over to it and kicked it in, standing in my doorway for awhile. I probably shouldn't have been standing on such a damaged part of the second floor, but I did not want to go back in that room. I did not want to see Koyuki bleeding and in pain.

Someone had gone to get Momoka and a few of her bodyguards and servant, and they were hovering about, surveying the damage. Momoka went in and out of Koyuki's room a few times to check on her. She finally approached me after what seemed like an hour. I thought she might yell at me, but Momoka just leaned against the wall next to the doorway and stood by me.

"If it makes you feel better, we got word from Nevada," she told me. "Koyuki got in touch with her distant relatives earlier today, and they met with the scouts. We have a place to stay in the US."

"Cool. We need a new place, anyway," I retorted, gesturing sarcastically at the giant hole in the wall.

Momoka frowned. "There is one thing, though. Las Vegas and the surrounding area has become a very Messenger-heavy city, and the people who aren't Messengers are intensely anti-Keronian. They have a name for us – the Five Kids."

* * *

_Author's Note: I just wanted to throw a big thank you out there to all my reviewers. I have been gradually gaining more reviews, follows, favs, etc. on this work when I was just writing this as something fun to do in my free time. I'm sorry I haven't had much time to respond to reviews, as I've been working very strange hours this summer, but I hope all of you know that I really love and appreciate every single on of you. Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy!_


	9. Fellowship

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 09: Fellowship**

I called a meeting the next morning – just me, Momoka, Saburo, Fuyuki, and Koyuki. Though her torso was bandaged up and she walked stiffly with an occasional twinge, Koyuki seemed fine otherwise, which I was glad to see. We converged in Momoka's study. However, instead of sitting at the big desk, I pulled a table in the middle of the room and dragged chairs around it. We were no longer a handful of long-lost friends seeking answers from Momoka; we were equals. We were the Five Kids.

"I have an idea," I began. I pushed thoughts that I might be a fool to the back of my mind. I was angry at the Messengers, at their iron hold over the entire planet, and the old fighting spirit burned in me. It roared to life in the heat of battle the night before and wouldn't stop.

"We keep talking about, oh, the Messengers call us the 'Five Kids,'" My voice picked up a bit of my adolescent sass, but I couldn't bring myself to keep it steady, "We need to be careful, we need to disguise ourselves, et cetera. But I don't think we should give a fuck. I think we need to make a name for ourselves."

The others looked at one another, bewildered. Only Saburo, looking down at his hands in his lap, began smiling to himself. I think he recognized what was happening – I was me again, the person I'd hidden inside myself when I left Japan.

"Momoka, is there any possible way you could get in touch with the scouts?"

"Yeah," she said, surprised. "I have a line of communication with them at all times."

I grinned proudly. "See if you can station them at the airport at the exact time we arrive, at the ready in case we need back up. I'd like to take one of your private jets and arrive without disguises, weapons drawn, with our real passports."

I saw Koyuki smile. "My allies would probably be happy to help. I don't think they've practiced in awhile, but there are interconnected ninja clans all over the world."

"I know some of my coworkers and friends in the field have been rioting against the Messengers in some places," Fuyuki offered. "I could see if anyone in the Vegas area could come out to help us."

Momoka and I held a look for a long time. She turned the idea over in her mind. I wondered if she thought like a business woman – mentally running through my pitch, weighing the risks, the potential positives of having our names and images out there. Then, she smirked.

"I don't doubt there are many people out there who oppose the Messengers, but don't know how," she spoke slowly, carefully. "I suppose if we were public about our cause..."

"Exactly!" I slammed my fist on the table. "We are the Five Kids. That's who we are! And we need to own it."

"It's like a spit in the face to them," Saburo declared. He sat up and leaned in. Even he was getting enthused about our discussion.

Momoka shrugged. "Then I guess it's decided. The Five Kids hit Vegas."

It was a risky move, but at this point, anything was risky – we may as well shock our attackers in the process and gain some global attention. Kululu laughed when we told him – it was a nice change from how grumpy he'd been lately – and he and Fuyuki immediately set to work churning out some weaponry. Momoka herself had found her old power suit from back in the day, and she tossed it to them for some improvements and adjustments. For those without power suits, a few pairs of energy wings were sufficient, along with some power shields, swords, and guns.

Our burst of enthusiasm was accompanied by a surge of morale from everyone else in the building. Word got out about all of our connections. Momoka had even picked up a decently-sized celebrity fanbase during her years as a public heiress in the tabloids, and she received word through messages that some of her fans had started an uproar over her criminal status and dedicated a lot of their free time and smart phone data plans to trending hashtags on Twitter for our cause. We practically had our own personal army, without even leaving the mansion or having any contact with the outside world.

A few Messenger spies would hang around the outskirts of Momoka's property, but Dororo and the other guards usually dispatched of them quickly (I, apparently, wasn't the only one getting taught how to be a master assassin), and after several instances of Messengers not returning back to their town I guess they gave up on attacking us. We didn't see any of them for the rest of our time at Momoka's mansion.

All our supplies were finished and packed within the week, and on the last few days I was part of the crew loading the plane with our luggage. We would grab crates of bombs or devices that did who-knows-what and heave them in, working fluidly as a team. In the end, we used two of Momoka's jets, and her helicopter. We had begun the plan expecting a few people to stay behind, but everyone wanted to come with us. I smiled. We needed the help and the support.

On the last day, we sat around on the launch pad, guzzling water under the hot sun. Tamama sat next to me, face beaded with sweat. "I'm so glad these bodies need less water or I would be dead by now."

"I can't imagine how humid Keron must be for this to feel dry to you," I laughed.

"It's like... Well, I've heard there are places called rain forests here that just have mist all the time from how much water vapor there is in the air. That's what all of Keron is like."

"How?" I asked. "I mean, this has crossed my mind before, but like – Earth's climate is so varied, but you guys seem to live on a planet that only has one kind of ecosystem or whatever."

"Keron's really small. Our star is pretty small and cool, too. We orbit closer to our Sun than you do to yours. So, like, our years are shorter and stuff, anyway."

My forehead crinkled. "So, wait. Back at my old house I heard you were almost twenty or so..."

"Natsumi, in Pekoponian years, I'm, like, five years younger than you," Tamama giggled. "Kind of. The math is a little weird, so we just keep using Keronian years. But Keroro, Giroro, and Dororo are maybe like... one or two years older than you? And nobody knows how old Kululu is. We'd rather not go there."

I had nothing to say to that, so I tilted my head forward and dumped the rest of my water bottle on myself. In the broiling heat, it felt fantastic.

"Wait, did you seriously think Giroro was twice your age?" Tamama looked at me in surprise.

"I wish people would stop asking me about him."

"Ooh, sorry," he apologized. "I'm just a little amazed. All those years... No wonder."

"No wonder what?" I asked, turning to him.

Tamama shrugged. "We just always thought, y'know, the way you guys sat by the fire together back in those days, that you liked him, too. But I guess you never made a move because you thought he was too old for you."

I stared at him for a second. As exhausted as this topic was, it seemed I found out something new about Giroro every single time someone talked about him. I reflected on all those times he jumped in to protect me, all those moments of perfectly choreographed teamwork, the bashful respect and admiration he heaped on me even though he claimed to hate humans.

"So," I murmured thoughtfully, "Giroro liked me the whole time?"

He looked surprised. "Oh, uh, I thought you knew."

"This is the first I've heard about it," I said. Irritable, I tossed my water bottle aside. "Whatever. Let's go back to work."

I was doing the thing again – the thing where I throw myself into a work frenzy to keep my mind off something. As soon as I had down time, the rest of the crew would wander off, laughing and talking amongst themselves, but I would make a beeline back to Paul and Momoka in search of more tasks to be completed. We were finishing ahead of schedule because of me. The others didn't seem to mind the extra work I put into everything, particularly Fuyuki, who finally had a few minutes to sit down with Momoka.

I glanced over at them while I worked. Fuyuki and Momoka were out of earshot for me, but I could tell from the tenderness of their mannerisms and the softness of their eyes they really cared for each other. Seeing my brother so enraptured with another person instead of his books and artifacts was weird for me; they were so comfortable with each other they both just kind of absently touched each other's hands and faces without thinking about it, trailing unthinking fingers through hair and along exposed wrists.

My hands reached for luggage and found nothing. I'd loaded everything without realizing it. Sighing, I looked around and noticed Tamama staring, sadly, at Momoka and Fuyuki, before turning to gaze up at Keroro. The sergeant barely noticed him, laughing aloud at something one of the other Keronians had said. It occurred to me Tamama never said anything to Keroro about his feelings, probably out of a sense of professionalism, since they worked in the same platoon. He noticed me looking and blushed, giving me a bashful smile. I grinned and responded with a thumb's-up.

The day finally came, then, when everything unncessary had been disposed of, and everything we needed had been loaded into the aircraft. Those of us left at the mansion were sorted into three groups. The Five Kids and the remainder of the platoon were put on one jet, along with Paul and some of Momoka's most trusted bodyguards. The Keronians had their own jet, flown by Niyaya, and we gave each other a passing high five when he was named pilot. The helicopter was lightly staffed with the rest of Momoka's men, who watched over most of the luggage. With that, we took off, on course for Nevada – but not before we bombed the mansion. This way, the Messengers couldn't snoop and find any information we'd left behind.

As we lifted into the sunset, I glanced out the window and saw the firepit, a tiny spec on Momoka's vast land. Adrenaline rushed through the pit of my stomach. I clenched my fists at my sides – I had to survive. We had to survive.

Momoka was keeping track of time via a world clock, and as soon as it was morning in Nevada she contacted the scouts stationed there. Angol Mois answered. Hearing her made my heart well up – she seemed happy to be helping and doing something active. Keroro sat in front of the radio and encouraged her, and I heard a spark come back into her voice immediately.

"How is everyone doing?" Keroro asked.

"We are all just fine. We found Slater's property easily, but withdrew before we got too close," she reported. "Giroro has really stepped up around here as a kind of leader. Everybody looks up to him."

I smiled despite everything. Saburo noticed and smirked, winking at me. I stuck my tongue out at him, but I felt pretty okay – he didn't seem to be harboring any jealousy or bad feelings.

Mois continued, "We are all currently on our way to the airport. Some of the ninja have joined us. They aren't just from Koyuki's former clan – there's like a makeshift underground community of various ninja wanderers around here. We basically have our own base built into the area."

"Nice!" Keroro and Fuyuki bumped their fists together.

"And – wait – is that – hold on just a second."

We heard some muttering in the background of various voices. Mois came back.

"Apparently a bunch of cryptozoologists and teenagers are passing by us on the sidewalks in the direction of the airport," she said. "Some of them are holding up, like, protest posters. We're stuck in a traffic jam because all the cars are slowing down to look at them."

"That's probably my and Fuyuki's doing," Momoka told her, exchanging a wide grin with my brother. "In any case, you still have a few hours. We'll call you when we're almost there."

The jets drew nearer to our goal. Soon it was bright mid-afternoon and we were flying over southern Cali. Several of us grabbed weapons and readied them. As planned, the Keronians were side-by-side with us, and some of them and Momoka's soldiers were to drop on the airport in parachutes before we landed. We strapped ourselves to our seats and the side doors opened.

"Here we go," said Paul, and we watched as he and the other bodyguards dropped out of the jet.

There it was – no going back now. The Messengers knew we were coming. Kululu, piloting, lowered us toward an empty runway. The wheels of the jet emerged. As we came down, back to earth, I glanced over the city and saw the streets around the airport packed. I had, perhaps, underestimated the sheer nerd power of my brother's self-published books and paranormal blog – or Momoka's sphere of influence as a reality show celebrity. Either way, we had more help than anticipated.

Keroro, like an idiot, unbuckled his seatbelt while we were landing and planted both of his feet on two separate armrests, hoisting himself into the air. "Grab your weapons, soldiers! Let's show the world who they're messing – oof!"

A bit of turbulence threw him onto the floor, but we all raised out guns to the air and whooped heroically. For the first time, we seemed pretty certain of ourselves, and of our ability to fight in this war.


	10. The Loud Sounding Horn

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 10: The Loud Sounding Horn**

Because of the riots, throngs of Messengers were already out and about trying to threaten the masses into subjugation. Those who parachuted to the ground, as well as the scouts, were already engaged in gunfights and close combat with some of them. Civilians were screaming and shouting at one another. Some of the paranormal enthusiasts and Momoka fans were in the airport, tossing around weak homemade bombs, settings things on fire, setting off fireworks, and generally throwing everything into a state of chaos.

That's what we walked into, with smiles on our faces. The platoon let us go first, understanding our ploy – the Five Kids entered the airport together, me in the center, with Koyuki and Momoka flanking my sides and Saburo and Fuyuki lagging on the back edges. We looked at one another and pulled sleeves back from our fake wristwatches, pressing our thumbs down on the buttons on them.

The transformation dazzled everyone around us, blinding the airport with a white light for a moment. When the light cleared, all five of us were in Keronian-made powersuits.

"Let's go," I commanded, and we were off.

Upon sighting their idols, the rioters cheered, throwing the Messengers off their game. I landed in front of one right as he turned to look at me, and he blocked a few of my punches before I got a grip on him, tossing him over my head. He fell to the ground with a satisfying crack, but I was surrounded with a handful more of them.

Koyuki, who'd recovered from her bullet wound quickly due to Kululu's weird science voodoo, turned on her boosters and tore through the circle of Messengers. She took them down without moving her feet, skating across the tile as if it were ice. I caught up to her as she powered down and we pressed our backs together, taking down Messengers around us in a synchronized kind of circle dance.

The others, including the platoon, had joined the fray at this point, and I could see bright yellow columns of Tamama's rage breath shattering windows and melding through walls like a laser. Small, hard-to-catch Keronians wound around us, waving guns and soaring through the air with the help of their energy wings.

At some point I passed Mois. She'd changed out of her Angol dress and into some gear a bit more suitable for a fight, her long silver hair tied back in a side braid. As I ran by, she smiled at me and laughed, and we clasped hands briefly before both of us leaped back into the chaos of battle.

It seemed the element of surprise had given us the advantage, as the Messengers began to fall back. Then, suddenly, the skylight above us shattered. A dark figure propelled downward into the floor, sending up a shockwave blast that knocked us off our feet. Some of the structure had been damaged. Bits of the roof collapsed, throwing up dust and rubble.

I coughed and sucked in breath, searching for the wind that'd been knocked out of me when I fell. Activating my foot boosters to get me standing again, I looked toward the epicenter of the explosion. The whole building was hazy with floating dirt particles, but I could make out a silhouette moving out of the fog. The figure held something long, thin, and tall in its hand, and it twirled it, blasting the haze away in a whirlwind.

I heard Mois's voice cry out, "Janja!"

In the crater left by the blast stood a tall, statuesque young woman. She had short black hair and fair skin, but her half-lidded eyes were a chillingly lightless shade of black. The woman wore a baggy sweatshirt over a pleated skirt and thigh-high socks – not exactly the best garb for battle, but she didn't seem to mind. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about the woman was the tall staff she held in her hand; the staff's body was made up of what looked like wrought-iron, with a crescent moon carved from some opalescent material attached to the top of it.

"Cram it, Heretic," she snapped back at Mois. "You no longer have any right to address Serpa royalty by name."

Mois ignored the insult, heaving herself up onto her knees. "Why are you doing this?"

Instead of responding, Janja held her staff into the air and brought it down onto the ground, screaming, "Armageddon one-one-millionth!"

A few of the Keronians, soldiers, and civilians on the ground around her went flying through the air, their backs slamming into the wall with a sickening crunch. The airport trembled down to its foundation. Chunks crashed down from the ceiling. I saw Keroro trying to sit up, but he was looking at the collapsing ceiling and Janja in terror.

I suddenly realized she was the one who had been there at the UN that day – she'd brought the roof down on the United Nations and ruined their peace negotiations. Saburo said there hadn't been an explosion, but I didn't realize it could've been an Angol...

Mois had stood, the only one able to withstand Janja's shockwaves. "Listen to me! If you destroy this planet, you will still be upsetting the Order! What do you hope to gain from this?"

"We are not destroying this planet," Janja retorted. "We're here for other reasons, and all of those reasons stem from your inability to fulfill your duty."

Ignoring Mois's horrified expression, Janja scanned the open area, looking for specific targets. Her eyes rested on Keroro. She squinted, tilting her head in confusion.

"Ah," she said, smugly, "That's why we couldn't find you."

Janja advanced on Keroro. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his arm had been re-injured in the fight and it collapsed under his weight. Mois screamed and tried to rush her. Janja merely smacked the girl away from her with her staff. When she turned back to Keroro, a bruised and bloody-faced Tamama stood in her path.

"I won't fucking let you touch him," Tamama snarled in his low, rasping angered voice.

He opened his mouth to blast her, but Janja jabbed the butt of her staff into his abdomen and kicked him out of the way. I could tell just from looking at her that Janja was older and more experienced than Mois. The only way to overtake her would be to surprise her.

I stepped forward, preparing my flight boosters. From this angle I had a direct view of her entire back. Even if I couldn't kill her, I needed to stop her somehow.

Readying my missile cannons, I launched myself at her right as she lifted her staff above Keroro. I aimed, locked on, and fired. The blast of the missiles couldn't kill an Angol, but Janja was still thrown forward into the wall, her staff clattering to the floor. The explosion caused part of the wall to collapse on top of her. She howled with fury, kicking the debris off her, but the momentary halt of her attack was enough to throw everyone back into action. We were up and running.

Some of the ninja, identifiable by their traditional ninja garb, were corralling everyone in a certain direction – the direction, I assumed, of someplace we could hide and regroup. The more experienced fighters stayed on the outskirts of the crowd as we withdrew, picking off any Messengers trailing behind us. The ninja lead us into what looked like a storage area, but the wall pushed aside into a wide secret passage. I stayed at the back to make sure everyone got in without any enemies coming along for the ride and gave the okay for the wall to be closed. The ninja sealed the wall; I couldn't even, just from looking at it, figure out where the door began or ended.

I turned to one of the ninja, "Is there somewhere we can treat the injured?"

"Follow me," he said, motioning for us to come along.

The tunnel was dark and damp, like an abandoned subway tunnel, though there were no tracks to suggest a train – just concrete walls and gravel-covered walkway. Some of us were wounded. I picked up an exhausted Keronian with a bad limp and carried her in my arms. After awhile, the tunnel opened up into a broader area.

One of the ninja nodded. "This should be safe, for now."

We happily collapsed onto the floor. Some of the civilians had gotten in with us, and they flocked around Fuyuki and Momoka in wonder until we gave them tasks to do. Amazingly, they were more than happy to pass out some medical supplies; some ninja had broken away from the main group and helped Momoka's soldiers to unload the helicopter and squirrel away gear, weapons, and first aid stuff while we were fighting. Some of the Keronians had been medics so they tended to the wounded.

I noticed a bit of a commotion out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Angol Mois clutching Keroro so tightly he might suffocate. She pulled away from him, touching his face with tears running down her own. Tamama stood off to the side, nursing his bruised stomach and ignoring both of them.

A few Keronians suddenly came running up to them, shouting and demanding Kululu. Keroro, still a bit dazed, did his best to calm their shouting, but they kept yelling, "We need Kululu! He's the only one who can help!" Finally, after a bit of prodding and questioning, I heard one of them exclaim, "It's the corporal!"

You know how people say their legs turned to jelly? That's what it felt like. A shot of epinephrin pierced the bottom of my stomach and seemed to travel down into my thighs and calves, sapping them of their strength. I wobbled, and my legs had that fuzzy, fallen-asleep feeling in them. The dizziness was so strong I felt like my body was spinning in a zero-gravity vacuum.

I saw Keroro call out for and wave over Kululu, and both of them glanced at me knowingly. Feeling as if I was moving through a dream, I joined them, and we ran after the frantic Keronians. We found Giroro propped against a wall. His shirt was torn open across his chest but there was so much blood you could hardly tell where the wound was.

"He got caught in the glass from the skylight," one of the Keronians explained. "A big piece came down and slashed him open."

Kululu went to work immediately, pulling out a rag to sop up the floor. Giroro winced and gritted his teeth. I sucked in a deep breath, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, and knelt down beside him; when he saw me, Giroro said nothing, but he moved his hand closer to me. I grasped it tightly, vision blurring, and he wove his fingers between mine.

I didn't dare look over at what Kululu was doing. I didn't want to see the damage. I didn't want to know if the procedure was even working. Every once in awhile Giroro would lower his face and squeeze my hand, and I would cover my face with the other so he couldn't see how upset I was. No one said anything about it. I think they all understood what Giroro and I were still figuring out.

"Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any glass fragments or internal bleeding," Kululu said at last. "The blood loss is the only thing I worry about."

"I'll be fine," Giroro grumbled, the first thing he'd said throughout the whole ordeal.

"Still, I don't want you taking a nap any time soon. Natsumi, would you mind keeping an eye on him?"

Startled, I jerked my head up to look over at Kululu. I blushed. "Me? I -"

"Don't worry about helping out with everybody else," Keroro said. "You've done enough today. Let me and Momoka handle everything."

Helpless to do much else but nod, I seated myself next to him and hugged my knees to my chest. They left us alone. Kululu glanced back at us as they walked away, raising his eyebrows suggestively. I scowled at him. The din of people talking around us seemed faraway, like background noise.

"Thank you," Giroro said.

"For what?"

"Being there. Through that whole procedure. I really thought I could've died for a second there."

"Dummy," I scoffed. "I told you not to, didn't I?"

We were still holding hands. I pretended not to fixate on it. A few Keronians sitting near us watched us out of the corners of their eyes, but I glared at them until they turned away. Giroro rubbed his thumb over my hand, sending a shock of electricity through my arm, and I jerked away from him without thinking.

"I'm sorry," I said, holding my hands against my chest in an attempt to quiet the pounding of my heart. "It's nothing you've done. I'm just really confused and really scared."

"Scared of me?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. "No, it's not that. I think, maybe, because of Saburo, I'm afraid this would end badly. Or, I don't even know where we would begin."

Giroro stayed quiet. I summoned the courage to look at him. My eyes traced the fine lines of his face, the angles of his features. For a moment, I wondered what I would've done if I'd have lost him, if I'd felt the life slip out of his fingers as his hand relaxed in mine. The panic in me over that whole ordeal was still fresh and new.

"Tamama told me you'd always felt this way," I said quietly.

Scrunching up his nose, Giroro muttered, "I'm gonna kill him."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you were a teenage girl with a crush on someone else and I was the alien frog living in your backyard," he replied.

I shrugged, laughing a little. "Seems logical."

"Did Koyuki tell you what Dororo planned on doing after this?"

"What?" The change of topic startled me a little. "Do you mean – well, he's planning on staying."

"I'll stay."

The abruptness of his words caught me off guard. I inhaled sharply. "What?"

"If you want me to," Giroro added, softly, "I'll stay."

I stared at him in awe, completely at a loss for words. My mind was blank. I couldn't process what he was saying to me.

"That's how much you mean to me," he said, avoiding my eyes. "But if you don't feel the same way, I won't. It's up to you."

A lump formed in my throat again. I tried to swallow it, but it sat behind my mouth like a stone. "I don't know, Giroro." My voice wavered. I blinked back tears. "I need a little time, okay?"

I thought he might get mad again, but Giroro just grabbed me and pulled me into his lap. Kululu had stitched up and bandaged his wound, so I curled up against him, leaning my head against his shoulder and letting my hands rest against his chest. I could feel Giroro's hand against the small of my back; my shirt had ridden up on my hips somewhat and his fingers were running along the inch of exposed skin below the hem of my shirt. His touch against my lower back sent me reeling through space again.

I didn't know what to do anymore. I didn't know what we even were or what label to put on our relationship. I was blown away by the sheer magnitude of how much he adored me, how much he was willing to throw away for me. Something flitted through me, then – the sudden desire to reciprocate in some way. I wanted to give him as much as he was giving me. I just didn't know where to begin.

* * *

_Author's Note: I was worried chapter 9 would be a bit boring by itself, so I decided to upload 9 + 10 at the same time. Thank you all for reading, hope you enjoy!_


	11. Time to Heal, Part A

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 11: Time to Heal, Part A**

We came into the restaurant from below. I could tell we were getting close because the tunnels suddenly turned into little subterranean houses. A few Japanese children turned to look at us and waved, some of them greeting "Hey, Dad," or "What's up, sis?" when one of the ninja walked by. The nonchalance with which they treated us amused me, as if this kind of thing was commonplace.

We reached a large set of double doors, and two of the ninja took off their masks and opened the doors for us. One of them, a kindly older woman, greeted Koyuki with a smile that wrinkled the corners of her eyes.

The man holding the other door, presumably her husband, waved us in. "This leads to the underground dojo we use to teach and train. Many of you will be unable to climb the stairs to the living area so we've set up a few sleeping bags and pillows down here."

There was a number of people already in the dojo, prepared with blankets and pillows and a variety of medical supplies. I supposed, as ninja, they were ready for just about anything. Still, the sheer scale of everything amazed me. I glanced over the heads of the crowd at Koyuki, who was just as open-mouthed and stunned as I was. She clearly had been expecting a bit of aid from a little mom-and-pop restaurant, not anything like this.

The two ninja who owned the restaurant closed the doors behind all of us and approached Momoka and Keroro, the two sort-of-leaders of the whole operation. Giroro and I pushed through the crowd towards them. The others apparently had the same idea; Koyuki, Dororo, Saburo, Fuyuki, Tamama, and Angol Mois all appeared out of the teeming masses of people to talk to them.

"You guys seem to be the center of this whole thing," The husband began. "We have a sort of dorm living area on the floor above this with enough rooms and bunk beds for forty-eight people. I'm assuming the ten of you will be rooming upstairs, but I don't mind if you pick out thirty-eight more trusted individuals to stay with you."

"That's very gracious of you," Momoka replied. "We'll get back to you as soon as possible."

Kululu was still out among the victims of Janja's attack, doing some heavy-duty medic work. I watched him go about his duties in bewilderment. As cruel as Kululu could be, he seemed really dedicated to helping and healing the wounded. I sighed. Kululu was just another person I would never quite understand.

Turning, I looked up at Giroro. "How are you feeling? Holding it together after all that walking?"

"I've had worse," He touched the bandages on his chest. "A little dizzy from blood loss, but I'm okay."

"We should get you some food and water," I told him.

As if on cue, some of the restaurant workers brought down a literal buffet of food, as well as an ice bucket full of drinks. When I smelled the food, my stomach rumbled. Giroro looked down at me in amusement. I put a hand on my belly, smiling bashfully. I guess all of us were a little hungry.

Over dinner that night, we interrogated Mois. As much as we didn't want to throw ourselves back into the conflict as soon as we got some time to rest, what had transpired that day was kind of important.

"Serpa Janja," she told us, then glanced over at Kululu, who was typing notes. "J-a-n-j-a. The j's are pronounced like y's."

"So, as you thought, it was a Serpa," Paul urged her on.

"Yes! We actually ran into each other a lot at balls and other celebrations. There are very few Angols within the same age group because of how long-lived we are. She's a few decades older than me, but that's closer in age than most Angols."

Keroro rested his chin in his hand thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing her name a couple times when you would talk to me."

"I guess you could say, in human terms, I was her underclassmen," Mois continued. "The two people from Serpa I talked to the most were her and Vitya."

"Ahh, yes, Vitya! I remember him, too," Keroro said. "He had a crush on you."

Angol Mois scowled. "Ugh. Father originally meant to arrange a marriage between us, but Vitya's family broke the engagement when I became a Heretic, thankfully." She gasped and held one finger up, as if signifying she had an idea. "Though, before I left, I did hear that Vitya was betrothed to Janja as a replacement for me!"

"Ahem," Momoka interjected. "I'd love to gossip about everyone's love lives later, but we need more information on Janja herself."

"That's the thing, though. I know nothing about it. I didn't even know Janja was here up until today."

Kululu paused in his typing. "What I have so far is that Serpa Janja is a few hundred years older than you, somewhat stronger than you, is upset about you being the Heretic, might be jealous and mad at you due to her being her fiance's backup plan after you didn't work out... That sound about right?"

Mois sighed and put her head in her arms on the table. "I'm sorry, guys. I wish I could give you a better explanation."

–

Retreating to the dorms that night was awkward and disorganized. I knew Momoka and Fuyuki were dating, but watching them just kind of casually decide to room together was weird for me. I didn't want to think about my little brother rooming with a significant other. Koyuki and Dororo were a no-brainer as roommates – they hadn't lived together since our teenage years and jumped at the opportunity to room together again. Saburo and Kululu claimed a room almost immediately.

Giroro and I stood at a distance and watched Tamama and Angol Mois fight over who got to room with a very tired, very distraught-looking Keroro. Finally, Giroro turned to me and said, "Top bunk or bottom bunk?"

I sighed in relief. "I'm so glad you said that. No weird stuff, though, okay?"

"That's why I asked which bunk you wanted," He grumbled, blushing and averting his eyes.

Rooming with Giroro was strange, but pleasant. Anticipating the loss of luggage in battle, I'd worn some spandex undershorts beneath my pants, and Giroro panicked when I unbuttoned them and tossed them in the corner of the room. I spent the next half hour giggling at him for getting so flustered. I immediately quieted, though, when he emerged from the bathroom in a ribbed white tanktop and drawstring sweatpants.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Nothing," I turned my head in an attempt to stop staring. "I'm just tired suddenly. We should get some sleep."

Giroro gestured toward the ladder to the top bunk. "Be my guest."

I flopped onto the lower bunk. "I've decided I'm too lazy to climb the ladder. I change my mind."

"Oh, come on."

His arms threaded underneath me, and I felt the sensation of being quickly hoisted into the air. A thrill went through my stomach when Giroro half-lifted, half-threw me onto the top bunk.

"That was kind of fun," I said, hanging off the top bunk to look at him.

"Don't get used to it," He warned me. "I'm not going to do that every night."

Giroro reached for the light switch and flipped it. The room turned dark, and I heard him get into bed underneath me. "Good night, Giroro."

He was silent for a moment. "'Night, Natsumi."

The morning after felt more like the aftermath of a sleepover than of a battle. I yelled at Giroro for waking up early and clanging around in the bathroom until I finally summoned the energy to wake up and shuffle in, toothbrush in hand. The sink was hotel-room-sized – that is, tiny, and we got into a bit of a shoving contest while we were getting ready. Giroro eventually relented, but made such a fuss about me putting on make-up in the middle of a warzone I almost wished I'd roomed with somebody else.

As he got ready, I noticed his hair had grown even longer in the time since he'd turned human, and he had an awkward cowlick on the side of his head that the hairbrush would not tame. The whole time we walked to breakfast together, I kept messing up that side of his hair until Giroro stopped and gave me a dirty look. I held my hand up to my mouth to suppress a giggle. What I didn't tell him, though, is that the messy waywardness of his hair was adorable.

We were surprised to find a pretty decent dining area on the same floor as the dorms. The rest of the Five, the platoon, Paul and some of Momoka's best soldiers, and a variety of Keronians had joined us and were seated at a few long tables, kind of like a school cafeteria but nicer – the tables were low and wooden, and everyone sat on their knees, traditional-Japanese-style. A few of them eyed us when we walked in together; I overheard a Keronian murmur to her friend that we were rooming together.

I started to approach her, but Giroro grabbed my shoulder. "I heard it, too. Ignore them."

"They think I'm sleeping with you," I grumbled, blushing. "It's embarrassing."

Giroro looked taken aback, and I immediately regretted saying that. I could see the unspoken question in his face – "Are you embarrassed to be with me?" But for how quickly the emotion passed over his face, it was gone, swallowed up in his usual stone-cold demeanor. Giroro nodded his head toward the platoon and my friends, and we took our places among them.

Koyuki looked at me with that sly cat smile on her face, looking back and forth between Giroro and me. I shook my head and waved the topic away dismissively. Widening her eyes, Koyuki mouthed, "What happened?" to which I responded with a silent "Later." She sighed heavily and dropped it, turning back to the main conversation, which involved Keroro whining about the lack of cow flesh among the breakfast food items.

Afterwards, Koyuki grabbed my hand and dragged me away from the others, drawing some bewildered looks from the rest of our friends. We hid in a mildly deserted hallway of the dorms.

"Okay, I absolutely have to know what's going on," She shrieked, her hands tight on my shoulders. "Everyone says you stayed with him when he got hurt in battle, and were even, like, cuddling while he recovered, and now you guys are-"

"Rooming together, I know," I pushed her hands off my shoulders.

"Natsumi, c'mon. This is obviously huge."

I crossed my arms. "There's... well, he wants to stay."

Koyuki tilted her head, either confused or taken aback.

"As in, like, stay here," I explained, suddenly bashful at her interest. "He told me if I wanted him to stay, he would, but it's up to me."

"And?" She was so excited about this new bit of information I thought she might explode.

"Koyuki, I don't know yet. Less than two weeks ago, I didn't even know he had feelings for me. It's too fast."

"Yeah, but you've known him for nearly a decade, now."

I stayed quiet. There was too much on my mind; I couldn't focus like this. Koyuki took my hands in hers and looked up at me.

"I can't tell you what to do," She told me. "But I can tell you this – Dororo and I aren't romantically involved, but we knew early on that we had something special between us. We felt it in the way we fought together, and the way we could sit together in silence without feeling uncomfortable. We heard it in the way we talked and laughed together. And I certainly felt it while he was gone, in the way I missed him all those years. It was a missing that never went away."

"So what you're saying is that Giroro might be that way for me?" I asked.

"From my perspective, that's what it looks like." When I didn't respond, Koyuki took my face in her hands and angled it to look down in her eyes. "Trust yourself, Natsumi. Don't worry about what you think you should do, or how you should feel. What do you feel, right now? What do you want to do? Think about that."

Koyuki was right. I knew it. I felt like an idiot denying it. I remembered being a young girl – so young, too young to be fighting off alien invaders – and melding with Giroro's fighting style like we'd been practicing together our entire lives. I thought about our times by the fire both old and recent, either quietly sitting side by side or talking with one another, and again about the time I stood in the backyard and cried and cried.

I guess as a young teenager I never fully realized how much Giroro had meant to me.

Koyuki and I walked back out to the living area together. Most people had started filtering back to their rooms or downstairs to the dojo, where many of our numbers were still lying injured or were simply helping out. Giroro seemed to have a bit of his old spark back and was yelling at Keroro to stop stuffing his face and get back to work. I giggled, holding my hand up to my mouth. Koyuki elbowed me.

"You're sparkling," she whispered to me.

I didn't really understand what she meant until I looked back at Giroro and was utterly floored by how incredible he seemed to me. It wasn't just about his appearance anymore. I saw perfection in his little mannerisms, the intensity of his eyes, the sarcastic toss of his head whenever he got playfully agitated by the others, even little things like the way he pushed his jacket back before placing his hands on his hips. I thought to myself, _I'm in too deep_, and shrugged helplessly.

"Sergeant!"

Niyaya came running out of the crowd, dodging the feet of human soldiers. He hopped up on our part of the table to catch Keroro's attention.

"Pardon the interruption," he continued. "But I felt I should tell you the Keronian mother ship is above Las Vegas."

* * *

_Author's Note: Hmm, this fic is finally drawing closer to the reason why it's M-rated. How much longer do you think Natsumi and Giroro will be needing separate bunks? Tune in next week..._


	12. Time to Heal, Part B

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Chapter 12: Time to Heal, Part B**

The news about the Five Kids had hit the media like a shockwave. To the outside world, we were an action movie – five humans who'd grown up with the Keronians, fighting to take down some mysterious, corrupt bazillionaire who used his money and influence to infiltrate the far corners of the globe. News programs got ahold of fuzzy security camera footage from the fight at the airport. Keron had seen us, and the mother ship had been able to track down our approximate location.

From what I could ascertain, things were getting pretty heated out in the city. Momoka and Fuyuki may have started out with fans, but Koyuki, Saburo, and I were picking up some of our own as Youtubers and other internet communities analyzed and picked apart the footage. These fans were becoming increasingly vocal. The Messengers weren't sure what to do.

One thing I knew for sure – Keron now knew the Messengers were working with an Angol. Janja's appearance in the video was pretty blatant and obvious. The only problem now was actually getting in touch with Keron without compromising our position.

"Only a few of us weren't caught on video," Momoka said thoughtfully. We were all crowded around a tablet connected to the restaurant's wi-fi that one of the ninja had brought us. "We'll have to send a few scouts into the city to investigate beneath the mother ship."

"That city is going to be absolutely crazy," Giroro pointed out. "I wouldn't be surprised if there were riots, or if the roads directly under it were closed or something."

Keroro tapped the video to pause it right as Janja began to approach him. "A lot of our main force is going to be recognizable from this video. Mois is visible, Tamama and I are visible, and Natsumi is shown kicking Janja into the wall at the end."

"Only from behind," I protested. "The ninja have some of that brush-in powder hair dye. I could go in as a scout."

"The media has pictures of you as a middle-schooler, remember? Now that they know you have long hair, it'll be easier for them to make accurate age progression images."

The ninja girl holding the tablet chimed in. "Actually, we have quite a few make-up artists among us. We could easily use theater make-up techniques to drastically change the features of your face."

I gave Keroro a triumphant look and he rolled his eyes.

"Okay, so either way, we need a scouting group that isn't very obvious," Momoka gave us a look as she dragged the derailed conversation back on track. "Which means no Keronians, no Angol Mois, and nobody who showed their face in the security tape."

Tamama sighed. "Aww, man."

"I think we should send scouts who are experienced in fighting together," Dororo piped up. "Individual talent is good, but in these cases, it's important to stay in teams. I would volunteer Koyuki and myself for this mission."

"Dororo and Koyuki," Fuyuki muttered aloud as he wrote their names down on a clipboard.

Momoka touched his hand, stopping him from scribbling. "That's a good idea, but I think we should also consider that some of us have emotional attachments that could interfere with the goal of the mission."

I scowled, which elicited a sharp, incredulous bark of laughter of Kululu. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand. I turned to glare at him, and he shrugged. "If the shoe fits..."

"Shut up, Kululu," I grumbled.

Momoka cleared her throat. "Either way, I think it would be best if Keroro and I discussed who went on this mission with one another and some of the ambassadors. I love you guys and appreciate your input, but all of us are a little biased."

Just like that, we were turned loose. On the very top floor, above the dorm area, there was a small, enclosed courtyard hidden behind the kitchen, and Koyuki, Dororo, and Giroro, and myself hung out among the stepping stones in the garden or sat in trees around the pond. Despite the looming anxiety of the mission ahead, it felt nice to get out in fresh air again, to have a few moments to ourselves.

"Well, we tried to keep you guys together," Dororo joked.

Giroro and I eyed him, too proud to say anything.

"Oh, come on, you two," Koyuki scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Literally everyone knows."

Turning away quickly, but not quick enough for us to miss the blush reddening his face, Giroro stomped off toward a secluded patch of grass under a willow tree. I grabbed his sleeve before he could get too far and pulled myself around, facing him.

"Hey, it's fine," I told him quietly. "You know I wasn't rejecting you, right?"

I'd never seen him look so shy and vulnerable before. "I'm just not good at dealing with... uncertainty, I guess. And you seem embarrassed to even be seen with me."

"I am not. I was a little bit at first because of the whole interspecies thing, but I dealt with that on my own, okay?"

Giroro cast his eyes at the ground, unsure. Hesitating, I reached up and touched his scar. Unlike last time, he looked up at me in shock, but didn't pull away.

I smiled at him. "I don't know what relationships on Keron are like, but sometimes before Pekoponians get together, they go through a trial period that they call 'hanging out' or 'dating,' okay? We're just hanging out right now, nothing official yet."

"Hey," Koyuki called. "Before you guys do anything weird, we're still right here."

"Wow. Some wingmen you guys are!"

Giroro pivoted around and targeted a particularly fierce glare at Dororo. The ninja held up his hands in surrender. "I didn't say anything! It was all her!"

It was too late to dissuade him. Giroro playfully charged Dororo, but he easily and swiftly wove himself around the corporal and incapacitated him. I crossed my arms and snorted in amusement.

"What kind of ninja bullshit is this," Giroro remarked, scowling. He was completely unable to move, held in some sort of elaborate grip by Dororo. "You're making me look like an ass."

"I'd say you do that just fine on your own," Dororo said.

A sudden, terrible idea popped into my head. "Hey, Giroro."

"Yeah?"

"Are you ticklish?"

He quieted, eyebrows furrowing. Grinning, I held up my hands in a claw-like motion and rushed at him. Giroro grunted and tried to kick me, but Dororo's hold on him was too strong, and he ended up just stomping angrily as I poked my fingers into his midsection.

"Stop," he choked out. "Can't breathe."

"I cannot believe you are so ticklish," I giggled.

With his eyes narrowing slyly, Dororo pulled away, releasing Giroro. I shrieked when he pounced on me. I eventually drew a bit too close to one of the ponds and tripped on a rock; screaming, I grabbed for the nearest object (Giroro) and pulled him into the water with me. When we surfaced, I could hear Koyuki laughing aloud and climbed over the side to find her lying in the grass gasping for breath.

"I'm coming to kill you, Koyuki," I threatened, starting to stand up.

However, I felt something grab my shirt and tug me back down onto the ground. Giroro pulled my legs back into the water, but I managed to catch myself so that I was seated on the edge with the water up to my knees. He coughed and sputtered and pushed his wet hair out of his face. Giroro finally managed to get a good footing on the floor of the pond and stood up, at eye level with me. I sucked in a sharp breath and averted my eyes when I noticed the way his shirt stuck to his body.

"Turn around, guys," He snapped at the other two. They obeyed, immediately interesting themselves in the species of flowers located directly behind them.

I frowned. "Giroro, what are you-"

He grabbed the underside of one of my thighs, looped his other arm around my waist, and pulled me against him. "Can I kiss you?"

"It's a little late to ask permission, isn't it?" I breathed. His hooded eyes kept dropping to look at my lips until I, overwhelmed, finally clasped one of my hands to the back of his neck and closed the gap between us.

Behind us, I heard Koyuki say "Hey, are you guys done – oh shit, nevermind," and she and Dororo snickered among themselves.

Giroro and I climbed out of the pond just in time for the trapdoor from the gazebo to open and Kululu to emerge. He approached us with a clipboard in his hand, though he seemed to be enthralled with reading whatever was on the paper as opposed to looking where he was going. Kululu opened his mouth to announce something and looked up, but paused when he noticed Giroro and I were totally soaked.

"I'm going to ignore whatever's going on out here," He sighed. "Anyway, all four of you made the list, but they put Koyuki and Natsumi together, and Giroro with Dororo."

"Great. When do we leave?" Giroro asked.

"Whenever everyone is gathered in the dojo. I have to go let some other people know they made the list, so I'll meet you there."

The dojo looked even more huge than I remembered it, and it was pretty freakin' huge to begin with. The thing looked more like a grand ballroom or a concert hall than a dojo, though I supposed they used it to train enormous numbers of ninja at the same time. It wasn't some child's beginner karate class. A stage was set up on the far side of the room that Keroro was standing on, talking among a circle of people, two of whom I recognized as the restaurant owners, and one of which appeared to be the leader of Fuyuki's online "street team." Momoka, Paul, and a nervous teenage girl were also up there, and I assumed the girl was one of Momoka's fans.

The meeting progressed smoothly. Keroro was the most experienced at public speaking, so after the crowd calmed down a bit, he launched into an explanation. We'd be sending a scouting platoon of about ten people into the city, divided into five teams of two. Ninja would lead us to various secret entrances to the catacombs around the city streets to evade capture in case the Messengers were on patrol.

"I think it would be best if the scouts traveled as lightly as possible to avoid being suspicious," Keroro announced. "That being said, you should still change into more battle-ready clothing and pack as many inconspicuous weapons as possible. Meet back here in two hours."

Most of the crowd stayed down in the dojo as I and the other nine soldiers retired to our rooms to get ready. I became shy suddenly as soon as the door clicked shut behind Giroro and myself; it seemed like a lot had changed between us since we'd left that morning, especially after that kiss. The first kiss, in Momoka's basement, had been random and frightening and weighed down under layers of anger and confusion and frustration. The one in the courtyard that day... that was no product of raw, unresolved emotion. It was decisive – "this is what I want." Instead of scaring me it thrilled me.

I turned to look up at Giroro and found he was already looking at me. So I reached out to him, touched his face. He closed his eyes and leaned into my hand, turning his to kiss my palm. I sucked in a deep breath; something was so utterly amazing about being there with him, a feeling of nervous excitement that burned in the air. I was starting to notice patterns in the way he touched me, too – the way he would wrap one arm all the way around my waist and pull me against him to kiss me. This time, though, his lips were parted, slanting down on mine in hungry, open-mouthed kisses that sent waves of adrenaline ripping through my abdomen.

I had enough. Sighing in annoyance, I dragged him over to the bottom bunk and shoved him down on it. Giroro looked surprised and embarrassed. "Isn't this – I mean..."

Straddling him, I pulled the hairtie out of my hair and let the ever-so-slightly still-wet strands tumble down my back and fan over my shoulders. I shrugged. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No." His answer was fast and very direct. I had to restrain myself from laughing aloud at his forwardness when he pulled me down against him.

Maybe someday I'll regret writing this down in a journal for someone to possibly find and read later. I don't really care.

Giroro's hands roamed my body, pushing my shirt up around my waist and running his palms across my bare skin, thumbs flicking over my exposed hip bones. Between kisses he would nip at my bottom lip and run his mouth and teeth over my throat. His fingers ran down my spine, coaxing me to arch against him. I wondered if he'd played this scenario over and over in his mind for years, and I smiled against his lips.

"What is it?" He murmured.

"I guess I wasn't expecting you to be so good at this," I teased.

Giroro didn't even flinch at my playful remark. He was already flushed and out of breath, staring up at me with glazed, distant eyes. "You're beautiful."

I had no witty comeback for that. His words humbled me. I slipped my hand under the hem of his shirt; his stomach was hard, skin pulled tight over muscle. With one movement I coaxed his shirt over his head and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, kissing him.

It had been so long since I'd done anything like that. Sex with Saburo, especially near the end, had been quick, with little messing around beforehand, and the sex itself was filled with a kind of hollow desperation. We'd been looking for whatever was missing from our relationship in each other's beds.

But Giroro was different. We would pause in undressing each other and he'd ask me if I was okay, if everything felt all right. I sat up to take my shirt off and accidentally hit my head on the top bunk, and we laughed together, Giroro planting smiling kisses on my new head injury. I noticed he was nervous and gave him a crash course on human anatomy between affectionate lip bites and soft nuzzles.

After a bit of guidance and encouragement, I finally climbed into his lap and lowered myself onto him. Giroro inhaled sharply, biting his lip and closing his eyes. I moved to kiss him and he held my face, moving his mouth hungrily against mine. His hands trailed down to my waist, holding me down against him, and he moved. I saw stars.

I gasped. "Jesus, Giroro."

"What?" He looked up at me. "Are you okay? Should I stop?"

I laughed and shook my head. "No, no. It feels amazing."

With my hands around his shoulders and neck I pulled him up in a sitting position, rocking my hips against him. He threaded his hands through my hair and touched his forehead to mine; his warm breath against my face and the intensity of our eye contact deepened the connection, and I felt heat pool in in the bottom of my stomach. I lost myself in the rhythm of our movement, stifling my moans and whimpers as I felt the tight, constricted ball of heat and pressure build in me.

I came first, the blank white heat bursting and stretching my cells out across the expanse of space. Giroro followed close behind me, his arms clutching me tight against him. I remember lying there with him for a few breathless moments, not speaking, just enjoying the closeness. Our legs and arms were tangled up together. His chest was warm and strong. I could've stayed under the covers forever.

"Please stay with me," I whispered, finally breaking the silence.

Giroro buried his face in the top of my head, nuzzling my hair. "Oh, thank God."

I became shy and smiled bashfully, turning away. "Hey, we've burned nearly an hour. At least one of us should go get ready."

He growled in frustration, but got up first, extricating himself from my limbs and the blankets and messy sheets. As the shower ran, I buried my face in his pillow, inhaling his scent – the smell of campfires. I eventually mustered the motivation to roll out of bed and pull on some underwear. Returning to reality would be hard, I thought to myself. I felt like I'd entered some alternate dimension, one that I didn't want to leave.

After I got my shower, I had to borrow a shirt from Giroro because most of mine had been burned up when I killed that Messenger back at the mansion. It was the white v-neck he'd been wearing when I was first reunited with him. We still had about fifteen minutes before we had to go join the others, and Giroro grabbed a chair from the desk in the corner of the room and pulled me down in his lap, wrapping his arms around me from behind and burying his face in my shoulder. We sat like that for a long time, and I closed my eyes, imagining him enveloping me.

"As soon as we step out those doors," He said, "We'll just be soldiers again."

"That's not true," I wove my fingers between his, holding his hands around my waist. "Just because we leave doesn't mean you're not my boyfriend."

"It sounds so weird to hear you actually say that."

"Is that bad?"

"No," he raised his head and kissed my cheek. "But it is time to go."

My stomach dropped, but I knew we had to go. Every mission was one step closer to taking down the Messengers and repairing the negotiations between our home planets. Not only that, but it would mean a safer and happier future for Giroro and I, and all of our friends. I remembered my dream of visiting Koyuki and Dororo's dojo in the mountains – there was one more person in that vision now, and he was standing right beside me. I resolved, then and there, to make that dream a reality.

We opened the door and stepped outside, into a world we'd left as who-knows-what and re-entered as lovers.

* * *

_Author's Note: Oh, hey, look, this story's M rating is officially there for a reason. Thank you everyone for reading so far! Also, if any of you have Tumblr, I put a link to my blog in my profile. Don't hesitate to drop me a message if you'd like to talk!_


	13. An Army of Martyrs

**A Collision of Heaven and Earth**

**Episode 13: An Army of Martyrs**

Disguising yourself is tricky business. The make-up artists were so good with their different shades of powder and brush-in black hair dye I looked like a totally different person. While I was getting that done, Koyuki socialized with the make-up artists and even held one of their babies for them; I was glad to see her finally feeling at home, acting as if she had family. Giroro seemed a little bothered by my sudden change in appearance; "You don't look like you," he grumped – to which I responded by saying, "That's the point." He sulked but didn't argue.

All of us were given these Keronian signaling devices the ambassadors were originally supposed to use to attract the attention of the mother ship. Our mission was to navigate our way through the city, directly underneath the ship, and set off the signal. Seemed simple enough. The ninja clan had a labyrinth of underground roads that looked like subway tunnels or sewer walkways but had no train tracks or actual sewage. Despite the fact that this made our job easier, there was no direct path to where we wanted to go, so we were on our own once we got into the city.

Koyuki and I had been teamed up with a ninja guide. He gestured for us to follow him into a smaller branch off the main tunnel. Above us, I could hear the slow transition from wind howling across dusty desert roads to the rush of traffic and the ever-present hum of large groups of people. Then, I heard shouting. Koyuki and I glanced at one another. I could barely make out a few words here and there, but I knew it was people against the Messengers versus people against the Keronians. There were too many voices, as if teeming masses of people were running around screaming themselves hoarse. My hand instinctively went to my power suit cube at my belt.

We came to a door. The ninja stepped aside. "This is as far as I can go. Good luck."

"Thank you," I told him.

We pushed the door open and found we were walking out of what looked like an unmarked shop with a neon-lit "closed" sign in the one-way windows. Some people hurried by us, undisturbed by our presence. Across the street, a clump of shouting teens were pressed up against a wall by a few people in Messenger masks and an angry mob behind them. A large shadow was cast over the city by the monstrous mother ship that threatened to eclipse the sky.

"Okay, where were we supposed to set off the signal, again?" I asked Koyuki, staring up at the enormous spacecraft.

She pointed at an area located directly in the center of the ship's belly, a circle that seemed to spiral in on itself. "That's the doorway into the ship. It unfurls to let people in or out."

I took a step forward, but paused, glancing back at the teenagers. One of the masked cultists had pulled a firearm from inside their jacket. They had told us to avoid distractions and fights as much as possible, but...

The Messenger clutched at their throat suddenly, dropping to the ground. A puddle of red spread out underneath them. The anti-Keronian mob shrieked and scattered, looking around them in alarm. I looked over at Koyuki just as she was tucking away the rest of her throwing knives.

"Let's get out of here," she said in a low voice. I nodded, and we hurried along the sidewalk.

There were a few barricaded streets crawling with cop cars, their red and blue lights flashing off the debris and burnt building behind them. In some places the air was still smoky, a few fights still breaking out between the two sides. Koyuki and I waited for a hapless police officer to try and get between two screaming rioters threatening each other with bombs made from plastic bottles and household cleaning supplies. While he was distracted we slipped by, disappearing into the shadows of a nearby alley.

I wondered how Giroro and Dororo were doing. I wondered who, out of all ten scouts, would get to the ship first. Maybe some of them would die before getting there.

Koyuki and I rounded a corner and stumbled directly into some sort of massive confrontation. I was amazed at the amount of young people involved, their passion smeared across their faces like blood and dirt. They were on either side, pulling executioner masks over their faces or painting their skin with the Keronian star mark. Some of the pro-Keronian protestors were holding up home-painted flags that looked like shredded fabric covered in paint. I could've cried from how supportive and enthusiastic they all were if I wasn't so horrified by the blatant imbalance in power.

Many of the Messengers weren't just holding guns – they were holding what was distinctly alien technology. Some of them had what looked like electrified claw rings capping off their fingers. Others had laser guns attached to ominous-looking glowing harnesses by a hose (intergalactic flamethrowers?). Still others had all different varieties of weapons that simple converted household items stood no chance against.

"They're gonna massacre them," Koyuki whispered.

Across the way, I glimpsed two other scouts peering in on the crowd. I caught their eyes. They seemed to be thinking the same thing – we couldn't let this go down.

"I'll fire the first shot," I told Koyuki. "After that, just focus on keeping them away from the kids."

"Natsumi, I don't think -"

I was already transforming, though. My power suit came undone and wrapped around me, catching the Messengers off guard and taking their mind off the protestors for a second. That was long enough for one of the kids on our side to throw a WD-40 bomb into the crowd. The ground rumbled. I activated my jet boosters and threw myself into the crowd, cranking missiles out of my wrists.

Koyuki and the other two scouts joined the fray behind me, using our Keronian technology to herd the Messengers away from the protestors. A few of the teens, though, were still recklessly jumping into the fight, flinging around their metal sluggers and pocketknives. I saw a girl who couldn't be any older than fifteen go down in a blast of some sort of weird glowing green smog emitted from one of the Messengers' hose guns.

I noticed a few older Messengers hanging around the edges of the fight talking into what looked like walkie-talkies. We didn't have very long.

As one of the protestors with a megaphone ran by, I grabbed her arm. "Hey, they're calling for backup. Get your friends out of here."

She nodded and plunged back into the crowd, shouting for the others to fall back through her megaphone. I gestured for Koyuki and the other two to follow me, and we ran for it. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a ninja folding open the door to a telephone booth and waving for us. We crowded inside and found ourselves ascending a dark staircase.

"We're very close," the ninja told us. "We think we may have found a door that leads directly under the ship."

"Awesome!"

"The only problem is the ship is over a very broad, open town square. I'd expect riots, and possibly Messengers who have already figured out our plan."

I sucked in a deep breath, swelling out my chest, and exhaled loudly. "Well, at least we still have the element of surprise on our sides. Let's hope my little improvisation back there didn't cost us this mission."

The ninja let us out through a bathroom stall at a gas station. We wandered out into the main area – to the shock and confusion of the teenage cashier sitting behind the front counter – and I knew we were in the right place. Through the windows, I could see a fountain surrounded by crowds of people and fire. I heard something like thunder and the lights trembled and flickered.

"It's Janja," Koyuki whimpered. I hoped my disguise was sufficient, and that none of the Messengers had spread my change of hair color during the fight with the protestors.

Koyuki and I had switched back into our civilian clothes, and the other two soldiers with us hid their weapons. We walked outside, doing our best to look casual and blend. There was another rumbling of the earth, and Janja flipped onto the top of the fountain – some sort of classic Greek-looking statue of a woman pouring out water from a vase. She clicked the butt of her staff against the woman's head.

"The Keronians threaten us with war," she cried, pointing up towards the ship above us. "And yet some of you still fight for them. Why?"

One of the protestors dared to say, "You attacked them first!"

Janja's eyes flashed. She pursed her lips and, with a twirling motion, transforming her staff into a spear and launched it at the offending individual. I turned away as a shockwave rippled through the pavement, sending a blast of concrete and debris flying up in the air. The crowd backed up, people nearly trampling each other, as Janja leaped to the earth to retrieve her weapon.

"I'm so tired of people dying and getting hurt," I muttered under my breath, feeling my own anger boil beneath my skin.

Koyuki wove her arm under mine and clutched me close to her. "Save it. We'll get the shit beat out of us here."

Something distracted me, then – a brilliant column of light flared up not too far away, pointed straight toward the circular door beneath the Keronian mother ship. It blinded me temporarily, and I threw my hand up to shield my face. When my eyes readjusted to the light, Janja was looking at something with her back to me. The crowd cleared away. I could see what she was looking at; a few hundred feet in front of the fountain, Giroro and Dororo had set up their signaling device.

"Oh, I see," Janja drawled slowly. "After seeing the sergeant and his loyal little yes-man, I wondered if the rest of you had turned, but having you fall into my lap is far easier."

The silence was deafening. I had my hand on my power suit button. I was absolutely not about to sit there and watch her murder Giroro. He held his own, though whether the tough, stoic look on his face was legitimate fearlessness or just a facade was a mystery. As Janja approached him, drawing closer with each step, I couldn't help but wonder why the mother ship wasn't responding.

"Quick, while she's distracted," I whispered to the three by my side. "Let's get out our signals, too. Maybe if more of us try to contact the ship, it'll know we're in trouble."

The two scouts who had joined Koyuki and I during the last battle skirted around the crowd to put some space between us, them, and Giroro and Dororo. Janja twirled her spear, opening her mouth to recite an Armageddon incantation, but before she could say anything, their signal went off as well. Another eye-searing pillar of light blasted into the sky. This time, the mother ship – as if it were some sort of animal – whirred to life and opened its bottom door just a small bit, looking down on us with a curious monster eye.

Janja, bewildered, had turned to look in the direction of the second signal, and while she was distracted Giroro pulled out a rocket launcher and blasted her to the ground. Her staff clattered across the pavement. Dororo swooped to pick it up, backing away from the surprised Angol.

"Unlike that useless former princess of ours," Janja growled, "I am not so easily disarmed. Armageddon, one-billionth!"

She slammed her fist against the sidewalk and what I can only describe as a very small, localized earthquake occurred. A crack occurred in the pavement and the ground shifted slightly higher on one side. Giroro's feet had been positioned right over the crack. He slipped, off-balance, and hit the ground as Janja rose to her feet. Her fist had split open and was bleeding from the force of her attack.

"I don't care if I break my bones. Angols can transfer that power to any of their limbs," She continued walking toward them. "My fists to punch you. My legs to kick you."

I needed to get her away from them. Looking about desperately, I noticed a few Messenger hitmen were gathering on the outskirts of the crowd, pulling out guns. Some of them were advancing on the two scouts by the used signal. The teenaged protestors were too distraught and terrified to do anything. I grabbed my and Koyuki's signal and ran to the fountain in the middle of the square.

A familiar sound rang sharply through the air – BAM! A gunshot. I didn't feel anything at first. It was more like a lack of feeling. My right leg collapsed underneath me and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. As I fell, the signaling device flew forward out of my hand, skidding across the pavement. Koyuki's voice, oddly distant, screamed my name. My hand went to my leg to see why it wasn't moving and came away bloody. A pool of scarlet spread out underneath me.

I became suddenly aware of other gunshots and people screaming and running. The Messengers had opened fire. I looked around me, sighting the signal an arm's length away. I scooted myself along the ground and grabbed it. My fingers felt weird, fuzzy. Minutes ticked by in slow motion and I couldn't quite get myself to concentrate on anything. How did you turn that thing on, anyway?

I put one hand against the ground and tried to heave myself up against the fountain. My hands were shaking. The world seemed blurry. Somewhere through the chaos around me, Giroro emerged from the flickering lights and colors and sounds. I could vaguely identify Dororo and Koyuki keeping Janja busy as she fought them for her weapon.

"Natsumi, did you get shot?" Giroro asked me grimly, holding me up.

"I think so," I replied. "I feel dizzy."

He frowned. "You're bleeding a lot. There's blood everywhere."

"Then turn this thing on, idiot," I insulted him in a weak, pathetic voice, holding up the signaling device.

He flipped a switch on it, but left it in my hand, instead grabbing my wrist and holding it above my head. The beam of light rocketed into the sky, hitting its target perfectly – the "eye" of the mother ship. My last memory is of the circular doors unfurling all the way, returning the signal with a somewhat dimmer spotlight, a tractor beam. I dropped the device and felt my feet lifting off the ground. Keronians from the mother ship dropped down around us on their small hovercrafts, firing weapons into the crowd of Messengers.

"Natsumi, please," Giroro murmured, "Don't leave me."

I wrapped my arms around his neck and passed out against his chest, floating in mid-air.

* * *

_Author's Note: Wednesday again already? Ah well, here you go~ Once again, thank you to everyone who follows, faves, or reviews. You guys keep me going even when I don't feel like writing._


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